<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Monsters Under the Bed by Brown_eyed_Jo</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455524">The Monsters Under the Bed</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brown_eyed_Jo/pseuds/Brown_eyed_Jo'>Brown_eyed_Jo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Movies - Nolan), The Dark Knight (2008)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Crimes &amp; Criminals, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Kidnapping, Murder, Obsession, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Physical Abuse, Romance, Stalking, Trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:54:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,932</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27455524</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brown_eyed_Jo/pseuds/Brown_eyed_Jo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All Cora wants is to go away to college and leave Gotham far behind her - even if that also means her dad, who just so happens to be the mayor. As Gotham is plunged into chaos by the Batman's most notorious villain yet, what happens when Cora is abducted by the Joker and forced to step over the edge into a world where she'll have to confront her deepest demons?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joker (DCU)/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Traffic Jam</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I jolt awake with a shudder as if I’ve been electrocuted. My eyes snap open, muscles tense and coiled to spring. After a dazed few seconds, I realize I’ve had another bad dream.</p>
<p>The rush of understanding brings back the squeezing feeling inside my chest along with a burning in my cheeks. I’d managed a week this time. Going back to square one feels like a kick in the gut.</p>
<p>The angles and corners of my bedroom peel into view, cream wallpaper with golden, buttery sunlight filtering through the blinds. The train pulling into Boulevard C station nearby is a dull, metallic shriek behind the window.</p>
<p>A knock at the door makes me start, afterimages of the nightmare still flitting around my head.</p>
<p>“Cora? You ready to go?”</p>
<p>“Uh, sure?” I groan.</p>
<p>It begins to dawn on me that I’m laying on top of my quilt and that I’m fully dressed: jeans and a t-shirt. My mouth is still tingling with my spearmint toothpaste. I begin to understand this isn’t the first time I’ve woken up today.</p>
<p>My laptop is open beside me on sleep mode and a cluster of college prospectuses are littered around the bed, one lying open and face down across my stomach. My brain kicks into gear.</p>
<p>“You okay? Can I come in?”</p>
<p>“One sec!”</p>
<p>I snap my laptop shut, then seize all the prospectuses and shove them under my pillow. Before I’d dozed off, I’d been glued to images of NYU again. Even as I shrug on my jacket, I remember the weekend city trip my dad and I had made about four years ago now, drifting through Washington Square Park with the legato melody of a saxophonist intertwining with the dead leaves in the air. I’d stood and stared at Washington Square Arch until the outline of the Empire State Building, just visible down Fifth Avenue and backlit against dusk clouds, had scorched itself into my eyeballs.</p>
<p>I grab my phone off the nightstand. “Okay.”</p>
<p>My dad pokes his head around the door, a casual jacket slung over a pale blue shirt. It still sets me off-balance to see him in anything other than his work suit.</p>
<p>“Everything alright?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I just couldn’t find…” I scramble for something to point out.</p>
<p>My eyes land on the yellow sticky note on my shelf: the book Mr Holloway had recommended after class this week.</p>
<p>“Got it.” I slide it along with my phone into my jeans pocket. “Come on, let’s go.”</p>
<p>I urge him out on the balls of my feet before he can take a closer look around my room.</p>
<p>It’s a brisk, chilly morning outside, cooler than it has been for a while, with a breeze that rakes through my hair. The boughs of the neatly-trimmed trees that line the road creak and shiver. The boulevard is quiet on the sidewalks as always, even more so with no commuters today. Mrs Buchanan, the owner of the clothing boutique adjacent to the entrance to our apartment building, shoots us a ruby-red smile from behind the cash register. We give her a wave.</p>
<p>There’s a dark green van parked on the corner of Chase Gardens, the avenue that shoots off perpendicular to our own. I wonder whose it is out of habit – everyone knows everyone’s pride and joys around here – but the van lurches forward and is already skidding around the bend and out of sight.</p>
<p>My dad looks up from his phone at the noise. “Asshole. We could grab some lunch after we’ve done our shopping?”</p>
<p>“Sounds nice.” I try to cover a yawn as we get into the car, hoisting my bag up my shoulder.</p>
<p>“Sleep alright last night?” he asks as he turns on the ignition.</p>
<p>“Not too bad.”</p>
<p>“Is there a reason then that you fell back asleep this morning?”</p>
<p>“I just stayed up late reading.” I force a shrug, looking out the passenger-side window to people-spot as we pull away from the curb.</p>
<p>“It’s not the wisest idea to be staying up so much right now, you know.”</p>
<p>“Don’t you think it’s kind of weird to have early nights all the time, Dad, even on weekends?”</p>
<p>“Not at all. Not when you’ve got applications to start working on.”</p>
<p>I lick my lips. “I’m working on them.”</p>
<p>We slow to a stop at a crosswalk. The guy making his way over turns to raise his hand in thanks, doing a double-take when he spots who’s behind the wheel.</p>
<p>“What’s the book you need?” my dad asks, pressing on the gas again once the man’s safely across. I still feel his eyes on us from the sidewalk as we go.</p>
<p><em>“An Introduction to Media Communications.</em> Mr Holloway said it would help with my personal essay.”</p>
<p>“Let’s hope they have it in stock.”</p>
<p>We round the corner that takes us past City Hall. At this time in the day, the colonnade that fronts the building’s entrance is in gloomy shadow; when I was a kid heading past on the school bus it always used to give me the creeps, like it was the lair of some monster.</p>
<p>I sense my dad glance at it as if checking all is well.</p>
<p>“Look, while we’re on the subject, I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says. “I know it’s time for you to start narrowing down the schools you want to apply to. The folks at work keep reminding me. I was just wondering whether the college here in Gotham is going to be one of them?”</p>
<p>We’ve hit downtown and the traffic here is at a standstill; there must have been an accident. The car stops and starts every couple of seconds as we crawl down the street. It gives my dad the chance to shoot glances at me.</p>
<p>“If so, I could help you with your application. It was my school, after all. I may even be able to find a copy of my old personal essay.”</p>
<p>I grimace. I’m weighing up the words I want to say on my tongue, swashing them around in my mouth like they’re a bad taste.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure I want to apply there, Dad.”</p>
<p>My stomach clenches as soon as they’re out, seeming to echo in the silence. Before long, I have to brave a peek over at him. He’s focusing on the traffic ahead of us even though there’s no sign we’re going to move anytime soon. His jaw works as if he’s considering what to say and how best to say it, too.</p>
<p>“May I ask why?” he says finally.</p>
<p>“Just a couple of reasons.”</p>
<p>“What are they?”</p>
<p>“I just need a change.”</p>
<p>I can feel that sick, squeezing feeling inside my chest again. I shift in my seat and stare back out at the throngs of people on the sidewalk, lowering my window a couple of inches. The bangs and clatters of some nearby roadworks fills the cramped space of the car.</p>
<p>“I just thought you would’ve wanted to –” he makes a hesitant gesture with his hand resting on the steering wheel, “stay close by.”</p>
<p>“None of my friends are staying around here. I wouldn’t be the only one who’s leaving. I mean, don’t you want me to go and see what’s out there?”</p>
<p>He nods. “I get that. But I think you’re all too ready to discount the option of an excellent college.”</p>
<p>“Didn’t Jonathan Crane work at GU?”</p>
<p>“That’s not the point, Cora.”</p>
<p>The mugshot on every news programme in Gotham of the infamous psychiatrist-turned-outlaw and ex-professor of psychology at GU creeps into my head. I hunch further into my jacket to keep from shivering.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t want you to go unless it was absolutely safe. The cops will pick this guy up any day now.”</p>
<p>“But <em>that’s</em> not the point, Dad. Look, wouldn’t Mom have wanted me to get out of here? Don’t you think she would have wanted us <em>both</em> to start again somewhere new? Away from all the memories and… Dad, the traffic’s moving. Dad!”</p>
<p>He’s shaking his head as if he’s just waking up. He curses as someone blares their car horn from behind us, stepping on the gas. I raise my window to dampen the noise and he holds up his hand in apology, glancing at the rear-view mirror.</p>
<p>“Listen, what do you need? More counselling? Whatever it is you need, I’ll get you it, I promise.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, that’s what I need. Another person who’s paid to listen.”</p>
<p>“Cora.”</p>
<p>He’s focusing on driving now but even without looking at him the grin slides off my face, buckling under the weight of the plea in his voice. I stare down at my hands, gently unfurling my fists to see the marks left by my nails.</p>
<p>“Cora, I’ve booked you in for an open day at GU. It’s next Saturday at ten.”</p>
<p>“Wait, what?”</p>
<p>I jerk around from the window, voice still hoarse. The car judders forward another couple of yards.</p>
<p>“Are you serious? When did you do this?”</p>
<p>“Last night.” He sighs.</p>
<p>“So, you’re hiding stuff from me now?”</p>
<p>“You’d have shot down the idea as soon as you heard it. You owe it to yourself to explore all your options. I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.”</p>
<p>“You don’t think I can make the right choices.”</p>
<p>The realization hits me in the gut.</p>
<p>“Cora, that’s not what I’m saying at all. Please, honey, let’s just –”</p>
<p>“I’ll get the train back later.”</p>
<p>We’re still at a standstill. I get out of the car, my dad barking, “Cora. Cora!” even after I’ve slammed the door. I dart onto the sidewalk, keeping my gaze firmly on the ground. I feel the tension in my shoulders start to ease as I’m swallowed by the foot traffic, having to focus on keeping a steady pace with everyone or else risk being elbowed in the ribs.</p>
<p>By the time I’ve walked for a minute or so, I know I’ve gotten far enough down the road for my dad to have lost sight of me if he’s still watching. Or maybe he’s too caught up thinking about Mom to care.</p>
<p>I head onto a narrow side street that seems for the most part invisible. It’s lined with dustbins, a metal fire-escape spiralling down to the ground from a mezzanine three storeys above. I go further down until the tumult of the road is just a buzz in the background, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. There’s a bag of garbage at my feet and something inside me makes me kick it so hard I feel a jarring in my leg.</p>
<p>I can’t make the right decisions. I know he’s right, and he knows it too.</p>
<p>Side-stepping the trash, I lean back against the wall, allowing the fog in my brain to clear. I know I’ve made a stupid move coming here, the hair on the back of my neck prickling at the thought of who could be watching me right this second. It only makes me start thinking again about the colleges I’d been researching all summer. Not just NYU at a 90 minute train ride away from Gotham; it was a college worth the extortionate student loan I’d be faced with if it meant I could keep my dad happy by seeing him often.</p>
<p>I think of the landscapes of Pennsylvania that look like they’re straight out of a watercolor painting, but the longing comes tinged with an uncomfortable gnawing as it strikes me again just what I’d be leaving behind for four years. Gotham was where I’d grown up, after all. It was where my mom had passed away. It was where we’d choked our way through the fear gas last year.</p>
<p>Who knew if I’d ever come back once I’d left Gotham.</p>
<p>I’m brought back down to earth by the sound of another car horn blaring from down the street. I scuff the ground with the toe of my sneaker. I don’t want to imagine the look on my dad’s face when I head back later – the look he’ll give me if I keep refusing to even consider a college that will mean I can stay here. With him.</p>
<p>Wincing, I pull out my phone and bring up my friend Alice and I’s messages. Then, shooting her a quick text, I get off the wall and head out of this street before I push my luck any further.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi! Hope you're all well and staying safe in such crazy times. This story was posted on Fanfiction.net quite a few years ago now, but since National Lockdown 2.0 in England I've had a lot more time on my hands and I decided I wanted to rewrite and (hopefully) finish it this time! I just loved working on it so much as I am such a Joker nerd ;) I plan to gradually replace the old chapters on FF as I go whilst posting the new ones on here as I write them, because I have so many new ideas for this story and I can't wait to have a fresh take!</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Of course, I don't own anything from The Dark Knight trilogy.</p>
<p>Apologies in advance; I've tried to ensure I'm using American spelling (e.g. realize instead of realise) because of the setting, but I'm sure some Briticisms will slip through.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. House of Mirrors</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’ve had that book for years and we sold it only an hour ago! Terrible luck on your part.”</p>
<p>The store owner had scratched his chin at me, considering.</p>
<p>“The girl who bought it – do you know her?”</p>
<p>I asked what she looked like: my height, waif-like and with long, dark hair.</p>
<p>“She sure looked in a hurry. This some feud between the two of you?”</p>
<p>I secretly wondered if the owner liked coming up with elaborate stories to assign to customers to help pass the time. He’d ushered me out of the store soon after, as if hating that more than two people had dared visit in one morning.</p>
<p>Alice had suggested we meet at Haly’s Circus once she’d finished her shift at the coffeehouse, so I’d spent the rest of the day trudging around, avoiding the boutiques in the Diamond District where I knew my dad would be getting fitted for fresh work suits. Then, at four-thirty, the sky on the verge of dark, I’d jumped on the subway and headed towards Robinson Park where the circus had set up camp since the beginning of summer.</p>
<p>Now, wandering through the medley of tents, trailers and carnival rides, I was asking for her advice over the barrage of cannon-fire coming from the Big Top ahead of us, people laughing and chomping on bubble-gum and the wiry, jittery animal trainer by the menagerie muttering to his caged birds.</p>
<p>As we walk past, the canaries turn to cock their heads at us.</p>
<p>“You should let them go free.” Alice glares at the trainer. “You were ordered to release <em>all</em> your animals last week after the ruling.”</p>
<p>He just pulls his face at us into a leering smile, revealing a mouth that has more gaps in it than teeth and a tongue with the tip missing. I wonder if one of his birds had pecked it off.</p>
<p>“Come on,” I say, pulling her away from the decrepit menagerie. “You’ll probably get killed in your sleep if the ringmaster sees you hanging around here again.”</p>
<p>As if on cue we hear his sharp, clipped tones amplified from the direction of the Big Top, punctuated by <em>oohs</em> and <em>aahs</em> from spectators. I can’t help but shiver at the thought of his beady little eyes beneath two thick, pipe cleaner brows.</p>
<p>“He wouldn’t mess with me again.” Alice grins. “Okay, sorry – side-tracked. You know, I think you should go to this open day on Saturday.”</p>
<p>I sigh. “That wasn’t the answer I was hoping for.”</p>
<p>“Well, did you want my opinion or did you want me to validate what you want to do anyway?”</p>
<p>She aims her empty popcorn carton on top of an overflowing trashcan.</p>
<p>“Possibly just to validate what I want to do anyway.” I smirk.</p>
<p>“Cora,” she says. “I think you owe it to yourself to go.”</p>
<p>“Ugh, don’t turn into my dad.”</p>
<p>“It’s true, though – I think it will be good for you. GU has just as much to offer as any other college. It’ll help you realize you don’t need to give up on Gotham to get what you’re after.”</p>
<p>I peer sideways at her but she keeps looking ahead. I already know pushing her to tell me what she means by that is pointless, like she’s a limpet that clings more and more tightly to a rock the more you prod at her.</p>
<p>We’re walking next to the Big Top and I notice dry ice creeping out from under the tent. The noise is almost deafening around here from the show inside, the air heavy with sugar and the tang of hot cheese. We have to edge our way through a crowd of people waiting by the entrance for the next performance.</p>
<p>“Look,” says Alice as we squeeze our way through the last couple of guests at the end of the line, “you’re lucky. You’ve got your dad. A good one.”</p>
<p>“I know.” I concede on that point. “But I wouldn’t be the only freshman leaving home.”</p>
<p>“But have you talked to him about it? Like, really properly talked about it? How’s he going to feel when you’re gone?”</p>
<p>I toss my own trash into a nearby bin. “He’d just miss me.”</p>
<p>Alice slows her pace, forcing me to look at her.</p>
<p>“Don’t act stupid, Cora. That’s not all.”</p>
<p>“He’ll be fine,” I say over a caterwaul of screaming kids.</p>
<p>“Sure he’ll be <em>fine.</em> And sure he’s going to be proud that you’re going to college and all that, but –”</p>
<p>A pair of hands clamp down on both our shoulders; we let out identical shrieks. Turning, I see Miles, Alice’s fraternal twin brother, along with his friend Nathan.</p>
<p>“Hey, girls.” He grins, flicking his forelock of dark hair out of his eyes. “Cora, haven’t seen you in a while.”</p>
<p>“College applications driving me crazy.” I smile at him but step away from his hand when it falls to my back.</p>
<p>“What’s got you two looking so serious? Someone died or something?”</p>
<p>“Having a <em>private</em> conversation.” Alice rolls her eyes.</p>
<p>“Aw, can’t you fill me in?”</p>
<p>“You fancy discussing with us how the right typeface can transform the appeal and re-readability factor of an online article?” I ask.</p>
<p>He debates it for a second. “Yeah, no. Your geeky fetish, not mine. Anyway, we’re gonna do the House of Mirrors. Want to join?”</p>
<p>Before we can protest we’re being frogmarched in the direction of the building.</p>
<p>It’s a double-storey shack with an oversized spray-painting of a clown face across the peeling slats. There’s two crumbling porticos on each side, one the entrance and the other the exit; both are strung with chains and <em>Out of order</em> signs, but no one pays attention to those as the attendants always sneak off on shift.</p>
<p>I look around; Alice has fallen behind with Nathan, leaving me ahead with Miles.</p>
<p>“You ever been in here, before?” he asks.</p>
<p>“Nope, it’s always looked kind of creepy.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, it does, right? Don’t worry; I’ll protect you.”</p>
<p>I laugh, shaking my head. I wish Alice and I had been able to finish our conversation but I suppose this won’t take long. I can’t help but get that squeezing feeling inside my chest at what she might’ve been going to say.</p>
<p>My phone’s stayed conspicuously quiet since this morning. My dad’s giving us both some time to cool off.</p>
<p>“So, come on,” Miles says as we duck through the entrance to the House and go up the ridged metal steps; they groan with every footfall. He slings an arm around my shoulders.</p>
<p>“What were you <em>really</em> talking about with Al? There’s no way you would’ve looked so grim talking about your life’s love of comms.”</p>
<p>I scoff. “It’s not my <em>life’s love.</em>” I figure it can’t hurt. “Yeah, I just wanted her advice. My dad has his heart set on me going to Gotham Uni. But let’s just say it’s not really the plan to stick around here.”</p>
<p>I glance back for Alice but it seems her and Nathan are taking their time.</p>
<p>The first room is through a door at the top of the stairs. Hexagonal, it’s only about three meters in diameter at its widest point, lined with six mirrors. The ceiling is made up of mirrors too, the edges piped with LED lights twinkling down on us.</p>
<p>We enter the middle and experiment with our infinite number of reflections tapering out behind us.</p>
<p>“I can’t wait to get out of here,” Miles says after a minute, peering closer to fix his hair. I can hear the tinge of ice in his voice.</p>
<p>I hesitate. Alice never brings this up and so neither do I. In fact, no one brings it up. It’s something most Gothamites have decided to banish to the back of their minds and they hide with a smile when someone asks if they’re okay.</p>
<p>“Where were you when it happened last year?” I ask. In his chipped reflection, I see his mouth become a hard line, the blood disappearing in his lips.</p>
<p>“Al and I were both home – with Dad. Turns out alcohol and fear toxin don’t mix too well.”</p>
<p>I’ve already imagined what it must have been like for them but I wince all the same, noticing my skin turn ashen in the mirror.</p>
<p>“I was alone.”</p>
<p>Now we’ve both said it.</p>
<p>“I hope someone socks one to that son of a bitch,” Miles says, a smile pulling at his mouth.</p>
<p>I feel a surge of gratitude. “Wish I could see that.” I grin.</p>
<p>“You know with all the regular drug suppliers hiding from the Batman that Crane’s trying to <em>sell</em> that fear stuff?”</p>
<p>We talk as we search around for the entrance to the next area, coming across a mirror that swings open. It lets us into a room that has the illusion of a myriad of tight passageways side-by-side. It’s almost like we’re in some kind of club; each mirror edge is banded with a neon light strip. I hop over some trash and God knows what else on the floor, Miles letting me go first since it’s only wide enough for one person now, wondering if this is where people come to get high. Maybe even high on Jonathan Crane’s fear gas.</p>
<p>Something squirms in my guts when I feel the warm pressure of Miles’s digits on my back again.</p>
<p>I’m about to finally tell him to lay off when there’s a boom that causes the mirrors and the whole building to literally shudder. The lights flicker out and we’re plunged into the dark.</p>
<p>“What the fuck?” snaps Miles.</p>
<p>I press myself into a mirror to steady myself, pulse racing. Over his heavy breathing I can make out people shouting.</p>
<p>“Something’s happened outside. You okay?”</p>
<p>From his footsteps, he’s circling like a caged animal. I can hear clunks as he shoves against the mirrors.</p>
<p>“Oh, fuck, no. No, not the dark,” he’s muttering.</p>
<p>“Miles, hang on –”</p>
<p>I’ve dropped my phone. I crouch down and root around for it, praying I don’t graze any needles.</p>
<p>Miles is moving further and further away from me, still whispering to himself.</p>
<p>“Miles. Miles, wait! <em>Shit.</em>”</p>
<p>My fingertips finally graze something familiar. I feel only a slight sense of relief when the pale glow of my phone screen allows me to see a couple of feet ahead, wielding it around me like a lightsaber. I stand up and have to strain my ears just to make out the thuds of Miles’s fists on the walls as he tries to get out.</p>
<p>I follow his example and begin testing each mirror myself to find one that opens, still hearing the muffled sounds of yelling from outside. My heart begins to pound against my ribs and I have to try and fight against the impulse to take on excess oxygen like I’m underwater and trying not to drown. Is there a back-up generator in case of a power cut? But this is Gotham, after all, so I don’t hold out much hope.</p>
<p>After a minute of searching, a door gives way to a room that feels much larger; cool, stale air meets my skin. I can see by my eerie-looking reflections that the mirrors are in a row this time; the ones that distort your body, maroon curtains draped either side.</p>
<p>I’m passing them to get to the far end of the room when I see a human-sized figure with a fraught grin standing in between one set of curtains. I cringe at the scream I make. A second later, my eyes adjust and I curse when I see it’s just a clown mannequin behind glass casing.</p>
<p>The urge to hyperventilate takes over. It flicks a switch inside my brain and the ice forces its way back through like cracks in a dam.</p>
<p>I back up against the wall as if I’m surrounded, still holding my phone outstretched in front of me as I peer around for any more surprises. The glass protecting the mannequin catches the light and the sight there makes me freeze.</p>
<p>My mom’s face is staring back at me, hollow-cheeked, terrified, as if she’s my own reflection. Her mouth is moving.</p>
<p>I know it’s just in my mind, a sick projection, but it’s like staring at a television screen and getting a burst of nostalgia at your favourite show when you were young. I want to feel horror, or shame or guilt that I’m positively eager at seeing her face, that I’m so desperate to scrounge for any and every facet of her even if it means relenting into the fear, embracing it, instead of railing against it.</p>
<p>I step forward and press my hand against the glass. I wish I could just fall through.</p>
<p>Pictures are the only thing I have left of my mom. A dynamic, moving image, however fake and constructed in my own head, is like looking at <em>her.</em></p>
<p>The only thing that pulls me out of my stupor is the realization that the ragged breathing I can hear is not just my own.</p>
<p>I turn around to scan the room behind me. My heart crawls up my throat as I feel my way in the direction of the sound. I give a violent jolt when my phone light lands upon a girl sitting on the floor.</p>
<p>She’s about my age, perhaps a year or so older, her knees pressed into her chest. Her eyes are saucer-wide and I recognize the staring-without-really-seeing expression of someone reliving the fear gas, too.</p>
<p>I almost want to sob with relief.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” I stutter instead.</p>
<p>She shakes her head. Her hands are quivering so much she can barely lift what I notice is her inhaler to her mouth. I kneel down and do it for her, pressing the nozzle that releases the drug into her system.</p>
<p>“Try and slow your breathing,” I say, though my own heart is hammering but at least I have something to focus on and talking will keep me from hyperventilating again.</p>
<p>She pulls air through her teeth, making a whistling sound. Gradually, her shoulders begin to loosen from where they’re bunched up.</p>
<p>“You ready to go?” I ask, and I help her to her feet.</p>
<p>Her legs are like jelly so we take it slow. I curse as my phone keeps switching itself off, having to keep fiddling with buttons to keep our only source of light.</p>
<p>We stumble through into another room, pushing frantically on every surface without looking too closely at what’s around us. Finally, a door lets us pass and we’re staggering down some stairs, the commotion of the circus ground now ringing in our ears.</p>
<p>But before I can feel any sense of relief that we’re out, air leaden with smoke floods my nose and throat. A choking heat warms my cheeks and an amber glow to my right singes into my eyes when I turn to look. Fifty yards away, the Big Top is on fire, flames licking rapidly at the red and white canvas. A dark cloud of toxic fumes is billowing up into the night sky, scraps of the tent curling in the updraft. I watch them fall as glowing embers, smouldering in the tufts of grass.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” says the girl, and she runs to join the crowd of people that are being herded by circus staff towards the park gates.</p>
<p>Faintly, I hear sirens. I need to find Alice.</p>
<p>I’m just about to try ringing her when someone launches into me from behind and I wheel around to see the girl herself, her face stricken.</p>
<p>“Thank God,” she says.</p>
<p>We fall into a hug and I feel a surge of comfort that she seems completely fine, let alone from being able to hang onto someone after what I saw in one of the mirrors.</p>
<p>“Are you okay? Nathan’s gone – where’s Miles?”</p>
<p>“No idea.” I cough.</p>
<p>“He <em>left</em> you?”</p>
<p>“It was dark,” I say by means of explanation.</p>
<p>There’s another explosion from the Big Top, catapulting another blast of debris into the air. There’s a surge of yells and frightened moaning. Alice and I cover our heads whilst she mutters angrily about Miles, heading after the horde of people trying to exit the park.</p>
<p>After ten minutes we’re out on the street. We lean against the railings.</p>
<p>I take stock of myself. I’m sweating and my palms are black from searching around on the floor for my phone. I have a light dusting of ash on my clothes; I try brushing it off but it only seems to sink deeper into the cords of my jacket.</p>
<p>Fire engines warble past us along with two cop cars and an ambulance. Someone is sitting on the ground a couple of meters away, staring blankly ahead as she takes sips from a bottle of water, her friend bending over her with a hand on her shoulder.</p>
<p>A man stumbles through the gates, the skin on his cheek red and raw and the arm of his sweater charred. A passer-by tries to make him stop so she can flag down an ambulance but he pushes past her and runs off into the night.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what happened,” a groundskeeper is saying. “It just lit up so quickly – I could see the smoke. And then <em>boom.”</em></p>
<p>Alice is taking big gulps of air next to me. “How many do you think were hurt?”</p>
<p>The choice of word isn’t lost on me. But if the fire had started small before the tent exploded, that would have given people time to get out, right?</p>
<p>“I don’t know.”</p>
<p>Across the street, a news van screeches to a halt. A man in a suit jumps out, almost giddy, with a microphone in hand. A cameraman and several other crew members follow him. They push past the crowd of people still catching their breath outside the park gates. It causes a young girl clutching her mother’s hand to tumble over.</p>
<p>“Hey!” I shout, but the crew are already sprinting down the path and towards the blaze, still visible over the top of the treeline.</p>
<p>“Scavengers,” Alice spits.</p>
<p>I’m watching the little girl clamber to her feet. Her knees are scuffed and she bites her lip, her eyes brimming. Her mother pulls her away from the flood of people, heels clacking as they hurry away from the scene.</p>
<p>“Cora,” says Alice.</p>
<p>I drag my eyes away from the pair.</p>
<p>“If you want to leave Gotham, I won’t try and change your mind.”</p>
<p>Something both rises and collapses inside my chest, along with that familiar crushing like there’s an icy hand around my heart.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>I push my keys into my front door an hour later, shivering in our apartment lobby.</p>
<p>The subway had been packed with traumatized circus staff and guests alike. Usually, the subway is a place to escape; everybody is so focused on where they’re going they don’t tend to notice anything else around them. Now, it’s filled with quivering hands and eyes that twitch in their sockets, the biting stench of char hanging inside the carriages.</p>
<p>I wonder if Miles and the girl I’d met in the House of Mirrors had managed to get home safe.</p>
<p>Stepping into the hall, I’m just shedding my reeking jacket when my dad barges in from the living room.</p>
<p>“Did you not get my calls?” he demands. “Have you not heard what’s happened?”</p>
<p>His eyes rove over me and I see the comprehension spark behind them as he notices the state I’m in.</p>
<p>“Are you –?” he launches.</p>
<p>“I had no signal on the subway,” I explain. “Alice and I are fine, honestly. We just got caught up in everything. So, it’s on the news?”</p>
<p>He nods. “Commissioner Loeb rang to inform me. All anyone knows is that the Big Top is an inferno right now. Could’ve just been poorly stored fireworks but they’re not ruling out arson.” He rubs his mouth, eyes growing dull. “There’s been several casualties.”</p>
<p>I nod. My head fills with seared skin and imploding lungs.</p>
<p>“Look, Cora, about this morning –”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I’ve been thinking,” I say. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ll go on Saturday.”</p>
<p>“You will?”</p>
<p>I fidget with my jacket collar. “Mm-hm.”</p>
<p>“Well, great. I’m glad to hear it.” He gives me the brightest smile he can, given the circumstances, and I feel my insides shrivel. “I’m just glad you’re alright.”</p>
<p>His arms go round me. I press my lips together to keep the sob from wracking my throat, my mom’s eyes burning into the backs of my eyelids.</p>
<p>I hear him sniff.</p>
<p>“Get those clothes in the wash.”</p>
<p>“Right.” I pull away, blinking hurriedly, and begin to head up the stairs.</p>
<p>“Oh, before I forget,” he says from behind me. I turn to see him grab a parcel from the end-table.</p>
<p>“This came for you earlier. Looks like a book.”</p>
<p>I frown down at it as I haul myself up to my room.</p>
<p>The exhaustion hits me like a truck. I kick my sneakers against the wall and sag down on my bed, though I know I’ll get ash on my quilt if I don’t get the rest of these clothes off. I just lay and listen to my chest rising and falling, breathing in the scent of the detergent my dad uses for the sheets.</p>
<p>If he can keep secrets from me, then I can keep them from him, too. Sometimes it’s good to lie to protect someone you care about. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.</p>
<p>After spending Saturday out of the house under the pretence of this open day, I’ll have to come up with the things I’ve seen on campus: the canteen, the accommodation, the architecture and stuff; the sorts of things he’ll ask me about and remember from when he was a student there himself.</p>
<p>I also need to think about whether I even apply to GU. The thought of sending off a half-hearted application just so I can feel better looking my dad in the eye feels even more horrendous. So next Saturday evening, do I tell him that even after giving the place a fair shot I was still certain I wanted to get out of Gotham? And by that, what I really meant was, <em>still dead set on a school that was practically anywhere but here? </em>What was he going to say to that?</p>
<p>I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. If I didn’t ace the big aptitude test next month, then all this would be pointless, anyway.</p>
<p>Pushing it all out of my head for now, I turn to look at the parcel laying next to me. I sit up and untie the string, only shooting my name and address in chicken-scratch a cursory glance.</p>
<p>I tear off the paper and stare at the book in my lap. It’s <em>An Introduction to Media Communications. </em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This will hopefully get into Cora's head some more before things start getting crazier in the next chapter. Let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Collector</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before I went to sleep that night, I’d taken a closer look at the book. I glanced through the pages, sitting by the small halo of light from my lamp. There was no return address anywhere in the package and no note that explained who’d sent it.</p>
<p>I’d drawn a blank on who could’ve come up with a practical joke like this, let alone who’d gone to the trouble. The book was going out of print, which made it hard to find, and so the old bookstore downtown with the reclusive owner had been a sure bet to have a copy.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After a while sitting there wondering in the dark, my room had started to feel almost too quiet, as if it wasn’t my own; like I was sleeping over at a friend’s house and had woken up alone in the dead of night. I’d already heard my dad go to bed, his footsteps creaking on the stairs. But for a minute I’d listened out for the tell of his hand sweeping along the bannister just to make sure it was him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’d been about to give it a rest until the morning, when as I’d leant over to put the book on my shelf I’d spotted some red ink on the inside cover. I opened it properly. A cluster of lines in the same prickly lettering as my name and address on the parcel shone out against the white of the page. And they were written to me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">WELL, ISN’T THIS ALL SO <span class="u">BORING</span>, CORA?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">WHAT A DELICIOUSLY <span class="u">DULL</span> LITTLE LIFE YOU’VE PLANNED OUT FOR YOURSELF. A JOB IN SOME OFFICE WITH YOUR OWN <span class="u">DESK</span> AND A POTTED <span class="u">PLANT</span> BY THE WINDOW? TALK ABOUT LIVING THE DREAM!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">MOMMY WOULD BE SO PROUD.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">IT’S TIME TO PUT ONE FOOT OVER THE <span class="u">EDGE</span>.</p>
<p>I’d slammed the book shut, my heart crawling up my throat. With no clue what the hell that last line had meant, I’d then pushed the book beneath my bed so it laid as far under there as possible, along with my mess of college prospectuses and pamphlets.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I ended up crediting it to some asshole who wanted to give the mayor’s daughter a scare. It wasn’t hard to find an address these days. But how they’d been able to find out the name of a stupid <em>textbook</em> I wanted was beyond me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Plus, I knew Media Communications wasn’t the most riveting college major but <em>come on.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">***</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“WE BRING YOU LIVE COVERAGE OF –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mike Engel’s voice blasts into our apartment.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I jerk out of my dozing, almost knocking my plate of egg and toast across the kitchen island.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ahead of me, I notice my dad is standing behind the couch, wrestling with the volume button on the TV remote. He shoots me a look of apology.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Sorry, I just wanted to check for an update from Robinson Park. No one at the office is giving me anything new. What’s the point of being mayor if everyone tries to keep things from you?” He smacks his palm against the back of the remote. “I’ve just changed the batteries on this thing. The buttons must be broken – keep an eye out for Tigger chewing on it, will you? And, Cora, you were asleep again.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I focus on scraping the yolk out of my hard-boiled egg. “I must’ve just closed my eyes for a sec.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My fingers are trembling and my spoon clinks against the china eggcup. For the first time, the pictures we have of my mom on the walls and mantlepiece don’t feel so easy to have around.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I sense my dad look back at me and I know he’s debating whether to open up the can of worms. <em>You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you?</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But instead, he turns back to wrangle with the remote and a sigh escapes me, shoulders slumping. I glance past him and realize the TV is switching back and forth between news stations on its own, punctuated by bursts of static.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…Gotham National Bank is rebuilding the hole in the wall after its robbery on Monday –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…how safe is it <em>really</em> in the outer suburbs of Gotham City?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…the outlaw known as the Joker was spotted –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…I don’t know Harvey Dent –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I recognize Bruce Wayne’s playboy drawl; his lazy grin against the backdrop of a swanky café dominates the screen for a couple of seconds until the channel changes again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…two people were found dead –” a newswoman reports, solemn-faced.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…I try to stay away from politicians –” Back to Bruce Wayne.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…hanging by their ankles with their –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“…but if anyone is for abolishing a speeding ticket, they’ve got my vote –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Ugh, how do I do this, Cora?” my dad groans.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I get up from the counter and go over to him. “What station d’you want?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“GCN, if you can.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I take the plastic cover off the back of the remote. Then, waiting for Mike Engel’s face to fill the screen again, I scrape out the batteries, halting the erratic channel surfing.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Can’t see any teeth marks from Tigger,” I say. “Looks like we need a new remote.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Thanks – I’ll pick one up this afternoon.” He heads around to sit on the couch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I take a seat back behind the kitchen island, continuing to eat my toast but unable to help listening in to the broadcast live from Robinson Park.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mike Engel is wearing his classic quirked eyebrow for the camera.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The charred remains found inside the Big Top were just recently confirmed to be those of Wes Chavez, the ringmaster here at Haly’s Circus.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">An image of Chavez, the same man that had threatened to run Alice out of his circus if he ever saw her snooping around the menagerie again, appears in the top left-hand corner of the screen. I stare.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The GCPD have confirmed this to be a deliberate act of murder, with evidence suggesting that Chavez was chained to a pole inside a dressing area of the tent during the break between performances. It may be impossible to ascertain whether Chavez was alive when his assailants fled the scene before the fire grew out of control. Possible connections to the Mob are currently being investigated. This tragic event also claimed the lives of three civilians –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My dad gets to his feet and goes to turn off the TV too quickly.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I pretend I’ve been tucking into my breakfast all this time but the toast in my mouth has turned to a ball of dry sludge as I chew this new information over. From the several news segments that had covered Wes Chavez’ defence against animal cruelty in court last month, I knew he was one of the most slippery men in Gotham, almost always surrounded by his circus posse. He had eyes everywhere; it was one of the reasons Alice had got caught in his menagerie hoping to get a good journalism piece.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My dad comes to lean on the opposite side of the kitchen island, taking an apple from the fruit bowl and tossing it in the air.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So, you excited to finally see my old school?” he asks, stitching a smile across his face.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I push Chavez out of my head for now. I’d already decided what the plan was for today: keep a low profile in the library and study for the big aptitude test in a month; grab something to eat, and then at four I’d head home and lie my way through my dad’s likely interrogation about the open day. I was such a good daughter.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah.” I nod, dredging around the bottom of my eggcup. “Will be great.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You taking books with you?” He nods at my packed bag that I realize looks kind of impractical to be carting around with me on a campus tour.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I want to get in some more study during lunch,” I explain as Tigger leaps up onto the counter and begins nosing at my stuff. I lift him away.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh – you get that book Mr Holloway recommended?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Neither of us had brought up anything even vaguely related to last Saturday. It was like our conversation in the car had never happened.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I just nod again, trying not to imagine the book still lying beneath my bed under a week’s worth of dust.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“A good call by your teacher then?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, hundred per cent.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’ll be sure to thank him at the next parent-teacher conference.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He tosses the apple in the air before he starts grinning, a distant look filling his eyes.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You know, I’ll be interested to find out how the old place has changed,” he tells me, and I can’t help but let a small smile cross my face in return, even though I can feel that squeezing in my chest again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Just then, a familiar, staccato blare of someone’s car horn outside pulls my gaze over to the window.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Hey, is that –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, it’s Malcolm,” my dad affirms, stiffening.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He fixes his gaze on our weekly schedule on the fridge. It’s where I put dates of big tests, appointments and, of course, my dad has written the date of my visit to GU.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I called him last night,” he says. “He’s going to drive you to the campus and then pick you up later at four.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I was going to take the subway.” I blink, jerking my thumb in Boulevard C station’s general direction. “There’s really no need –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“No, there is. I…”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He has his hands on his hips, fingers digging into the apple he still hasn’t taken a bite of. He twists a fraction towards the TV before turning back to me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What with everything that’s happening, I wanted to be sure you got there safe.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He stands there in one of the few semi-casual shirts he owns, looking like he’d rather admit to anything else in the world right now.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I decide to cut him a break. “Well, thanks,” I say as I go to put my stuff in the dishwasher; I can feel him watching me. “I guess I’d better head out now, then. Don’t want to keep Mal waiting.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He comes around the kitchen island and wraps his arms around me. I return the squeeze, staring off at the blank screen of the TV.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Please,” he murmurs, “try and enjoy today. Get as much out of it as you can.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I will,” I mumble into his chest.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">***</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Cora.” Malcolm flashes me a smile via the rear-view mirror as I get into his black Mercedes-Benz.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Hi, Mal,” I say, dumping my bag next to me and clipping myself into my seatbelt.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I meet his eyes again in the mirror. I can’t tell for sure but he looks like he’s sweating inside his usual starched white shirt and black jacket; moisture glistens above his small, grey mustache. It’s only 59 degrees outside and I wonder if he’s getting sick.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Sorry about this – dragging you out on a Saturday. I was going to take the subway.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“No, no bother at all,” he says as he blots his face with a handkerchief. “All strapped in?” He keys the ignition.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I let myself sink back into the plush leather seat as he wheels us out of the boulevard with one hand like a pro. I feel my eyes grow heavy with the gentle whirr of the vehicle and as I start to nod off again I run over the new plan in my head. As long as I get back to campus well before four o’clock so Mal will be none the wiser, it should all go off without a hitch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">After about ten minutes the insistent buzz of my phone pulls me out of my drowsing. We’re just crossing the Sprang River into Uptown Gotham. The high-risers here make you feel like you’re entering a trench; they cut off any sunlight that might’ve reached the ground, but the sky today is murky and I can almost feel the drop in temperature as we enter the built-up Otisburg district.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Alice,” I say once I’ve seen the caller ID. “Ready for your shift?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, on the way there now,” she tells me, and in the background I hear a large vehicle blast by her. “Miles is giving me a lift.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Please tell me you’ve forgiven him, already.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Not quite. He keeps asking me to tell you how sorry he is.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I can hear snippets of Miles’s voice on the other end of the line cut short by Alice telling him to shut up. I wince.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You should cut him some slack.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Slack? He <em>ditched</em> you – and speaking of ditching. You got today all worked out?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I roll my eyes. “Well, Malcolm’s driving me to campus,” I say, mostly to explain why I can’t go into detail about it right now, and Alice makes a sound of understanding. “Dad got weird and overprotective this morning.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So, you going to make a break for it once you’re there?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I reply with the affirmative, I hear her sigh. “What’s wrong?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Look, I just keep remembering what I said to you that night. Out on the street. I was scared, Cora, really scared – <em>yes,</em> Miles, I <em>know</em> – and basically, I think I let that cloud my judgement.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t make a sound, just waiting for her to find the right words, the low hum of the car in my ears.</p>
<p>“I just wanted to say I’m sorry for that. It was totally wrong of me to let you go ahead without giving college here a chance. Sure, you might’ve gone today and not liked GU as a whole – fair enough. But at least you’d have given it a shot.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You’re telling me this now?” I say.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah. I was thinking about it all morning.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I close my eyes and lean against the window, feeling the vibrations go through my skull. “You shouldn’t feel guilty. I’m the one who’s made the decision.” Before she can protest, I say, “Did you see the news?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s a couple of seconds’ silence. “Yeah. Those poor people.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I nod even though she can’t see me. “Look, we’re pulling up soon. So, I’ll call you later and tell you how it went.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Wait –”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I end the call and rub a hand over my face. Why did Alice always have to do this? Make me feel bad for making stupid decisions?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Everything alright?” Mal asks.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, sorry. Car sick.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You’ve never got that before.” He hesitates. “Want me to pull over?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“No, I’m good. Can I open the window, though?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The breeze on my cheeks helps cool me down a little; I feel a bit like Mal with his handkerchief that he keeps bringing out to press against his flushed forehead.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I don’t know what to do. Alice is right, of course, as always. But the stubborn part of me wants to blot her out, stick to my guns and my decision no matter how much of a crappy one it is and how it’s made me have to lie to my dad; and yet the thought of being stuck here in Gotham only makes me want to avoid it all the more, like we’re two magnets repelling one another the more I’m forced to think about staying.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t think I would end up going to Gotham University today. But the more Alice’s words replay over and over in my head, the more I come to realize that maybe a tiny part of me would regret not giving the place a try. For my dad, at least.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Listen, is it okay if I make a quick pitstop?” Mal says from the front, pulling me out of my thoughts. “I just need to pick something up – it’s only small. Maybe you’d like to do it for me? Stretching your legs will help the car sickness,” he explains whilst dabbing at his brow with his hankie again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“’Course,” I say with more energy now, like the decision’s lifted a huge weight off my mind. “That’ll be nice, actually.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A couple of minutes pass before Mal turns us off Memorial Avenue. We’re leaving the business districts behind us, the road turning into a quiet, single lane with squat, brick buildings that border each side. I realize we must be near the Docks and as we make another turn I can just make out the sallow Gotham river through a gap between two derelict lines of houses.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Mal pulls next to the curb. On the adjacent side of the road, a ramshackle store seems to groan in the buffeting breeze this close to the large stretch of water. I peer up at a sign with faded lettering: <em>Antiques.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It occurs to me that I must have misjudged Mal all these years; I didn’t know he liked things like this.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He turns off the engine and pulls out a folded slip of paper from his pocket.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Show that to the guy behind the counter? He’ll know what to do.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I nod, grabbing my bag out of habit. “Back in a minute.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Knowing Mal’s parked here is comforting enough, but for some reason I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I walk the short distance to the store entrance. I stuff my hands in my pockets and take on the brisk pace that as a female in a rough city you’re taught since the day you start making your way to and from school on your own; the pace that suggests you’ve got somewhere to be, someone waiting for you – the kind that puts people off trying to mess with you.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As I enter the shop, a bell gives a tinkling ring above my head. I jump up three little steps into a wall of musty air and as the bell goes still I make out the simultaneous ticking of clocks from all corners of the room.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Every inch of this place is covered, hung or strewn with an antique. It’s a big store, but instead of aisles, there’s just two wending pathways that cut a way through a hodgepodge of table displays and freestanding furniture: armoires and armchairs laden with brocaded cushions with silky tassels. There’s even a rack of dresses, lacquered masks hanging off the corners. They’re kind of creepy so I move further into the store, running my thumb over the folded paper Mal gave me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A staircase begins close to my left. It curves around until it meets the wall and then leads straight up to the second level. I can see it’s only half the size of the ground floor and that it’s guarded by a wooden balustrade to keep anyone from falling off, with another trove of antiques up there, too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The building definitely creaks with the wind. There must be a hole in the wall somewhere because the chandelier above me is swaying slightly, crystals sparkling from tiny bulbs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lifting my bag further up my shoulder, I squeeze my way through one of the makeshift aisles towards the back of the shop where I can see there’s an old counter hemmed into a dark corner with a till.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I scan around. “Hello? I’m just here to pick up something for a Mr Malcolm Hill?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s as I’m speaking that from outside I hear the familiar growl of an engine I’ve known for ten years switch back on. I whirl around to the screeching of wheels on tarmac and through the yellowish glass of the storefront I see Mal’s car disappear.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Something twists in my guts. I frown and turn back to the counter, opening up the crumpled note in my hand.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s the same red chicken-scratch as before.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">IT’S TIME TO PUT ONE FOOT OVER THE <span class="u">EDGE</span>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a sharp fizzle of electricity, everything goes dark. I stumble back into a table display and a vase hits the floorboards with a dull clunk that jolts through the room. As it rolls to a halt by my feet, visceral memories creep into my head: clammy hands shoving against mirrors; ragged gasps for more air.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I grit my teeth, giving myself a firm shake to clear it. I feel a flicker of relief when I see daylight is still streaming through the display windows.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Hello?” I call even though it comes out more as a whimper.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My ears are straining for any sign of the store owner but no one appears. All I can hear is the faint whistle of the breeze from Gotham River rippling through the hole in the wall somewhere, the chandelier swinging as if on phantom wires.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m about to start edging back towards the door when a voice from upstairs makes me freeze.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Sorry about the theatrics. I didn’t mean to <em>scare</em> you,” it says, nasally and tinged with something like glee.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The blood is pounding so hard in my head my vision blurs. I stay silent, hardly daring to move.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s a creak of someone’s weight above me but all I can see when I look up are dusty floorboards wreathed with cobwebs. A spider is scrabbling its way across the beams.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When the voice speaks again, I realize it’s further away from the creak; so, there’s more than one person up there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What a kooky little place, right? I was never one for antiques, but it’s somewhere we won’t be <em>disturbed.</em> Oh! Reminds me. I hope you liked what I did for ya last weekend – getting the book you wanted. I sent one of my best people out <em>specially.</em> Wanted to sneak you a little message before we finally got to <em>meet.</em>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“What do you m-mean?” I finally stammer.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“<em>An Introduction to Media Communications,</em> recommended by the one and only Mr Holloway. Like I said, I found it… boring. But maybe one of these days you can explain to me its <em>appeal.</em> I’m all for learning, after all,” he says, stretching out the syllables like putty.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A pair of feet begin to make their way down the stairs. Each loud thud judders through my body and I have to clench my teeth to hold in a sob.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I need to <em>think.</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I push all thoughts of that book out of my head. All that matters now is how I’m going to get out of here.</p>
<p>As soon as I make a move towards the door from under this alcove, whoever’s on the stairs is going to see me. Which means I need to find another way out.</p>
<p>After a hurried glance around me, everything gloomy in the near-dark, I notice an arched, wooden door behind the counter. I slip towards it, my legs almost buckling beneath my weight.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Y’know, I was rooting for Mr Malcolm Hill,” I hear him say with deadpan pity as I move. “It’s such a <em>waste</em> when they don’t put up a good fight. You can’t <em>savour</em> the… internal conflict.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I cringe when the door budges open with a faint squeak of rusty hinges. The office on the other side is narrow with a terracotta tiled floor and riddled with old furniture that looks in the process of being fixed up. I’m relieved when I see a tiny, meshed window that allows some light inside. Below it is another door that must lead out to a back alleyway, but it’s bolted with a thick padlock that I go and wrestle with all the same.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I mean, working for your family for <em>years…</em> I personally thought he’d have a bit more <em>loyalty</em> than that, but each to their own.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He lets out a high-pitched giggle that causes my stomach to turn over. Shivering, I drop my bag and begin rummaging around the room for something I can use to try and defend myself. Up against a gun, I’m dead. But up against a knife, maybe I have a chance if I can keep some distance between us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We all had bets, y’see. Didn’t we, gang?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His voice sounds much closer now and I jump as I hear at least three other people chime in with him, laughing. I try not to let it make me angry as I shove an arm inside a compacted cupboard, grappling around for something heavy. My hand grasps something like it and I pull out a gold figurine of some lady holding a candlestick. It’s about the height of a table lamp and I know I’ll be able to crack someone’s head open with this.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I stagger to my feet and hold it out in front of me just as I hear the floorboards creak outside the office. I brace my feet shoulder-width apart, gripping the figurine like a bat and feel it’s already slick with my sweat.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A man in a purple suit slithers into the doorway and takes hold of each side of the wooden frame like two bars. The weak light piercing through the window hits his face.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I clutch my only weapon tighter, my head swimming with every heartbeat.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">White face paint is plastered all the way from his hairline to his jaw with a red layer extending his mouth at the corners. His eyes, surrounded with black like the sockets of a skull, land on me. He grins, catlike, revealing a set of cruel, yellow teeth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So, this is where you snuck off to,” he says. “I was going to have to smoke you <em>out.”</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He drops his hands from the door-frame and moves to take a step closer to me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Stop or I’ll use this,” I say through clenched teeth, adjusting my grip around the figurine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a flicker of his eyes, he seems to realize what I’m pointing at him. His tongue darts out to press against the side of his mouth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Is that meant to be a <em>bat?”</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You want to find out?”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He lets out a giggle. “Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but that’s not gonna drive many monsters like <em>me</em> off.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I feel my pathetic arms shaking with the weight. “Don’t come near me,” I say as he takes another step forward. “I’ll kill you if I have to.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’d like to see you try that.” His voice is a low husk.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He’s so close I can almost smell the chemical stench of his face paint. I’m just about to aim a swing at him when I hear a buzz at my feet.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By the way his gaze swivels down to my bag, he’s heard it, too. He looks back up at me with pursed lips and only stares as I kick my bag behind me. Then, inch by inch, I lower my hand to take out my phone. The blood is screaming inside my head as I rise to my full height again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Since I’m the nice guy I <em>am,</em>” he mocks, and he pushes a hand through his stringy hair that I realize for the first time is tinted green, “I’m gonna give you a <em>choice.</em>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Even though he’s smiling, I can sense the threat in his posture now as he slides closer across the tiles.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Either give the phone to me… <em>or,</em> I’ll have to do something that’s not very <em>nice.</em>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The moisture drains from my mouth. Maybe my thumb slips. Maybe I have a moment of pure faith in my own abilities to fend off a six-foot psychopath. I don’t know, but when I hear my dad’s cheery greeting of, “Hey, honey,” through the phone, all I do know is that I’ve made a terrible mistake.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">With a huff like a wild boar, he lunges at me.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you so much for your kudos and subscriptions/bookmarks, it really means the world :)</p>
<p>I had to post this chapter before I drove myself mad making changes haha. I hope you enjoy it!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Blood Stains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When I was a kid, I used to think that monsters lived under my bed. Not so much the type that came with fur and big canines, because after so many movies it was kind of easy to convince yourself that a monster like that could become your friend and act as some kind of protector; like how a dog would lie at the foot of your bed and growl if they heard an intruder.</p>
<p>The monsters I used to believe in were the kind that lived in shadow and the space just out of the corner of your eye. They’d torment me at night: a chittering of breath, a scrape of a nail on the floorboard. I’d lie awake for hours until sheer exhaustion overtook me. Sometimes I used to think they followed me out of the house: they’d watch me as I got on the school bus, then lie in wait for when I was dropped off, only for the cycle to begin again.</p>
<p>I could never get out of bed, for fear they’d reach out and grab my ankles. And I’d stopped crying out for my parents; I was starting to realize how tired they got after waking up in the middle of the night to deal with me all the time.</p>
<p>The older I got, the more I could blot them out, and the easier I could fall asleep. My brain became more focused on other things: big tests and homework and friendships. Until finally, when I was about eleven years old, I remember sitting in the kitchen and laughing with my mom and dad about how silly I used to be with “those monsters under the bed.”</p>
<p>After my mom’s death, they came back in my nightmares. Although this time, they weren’t the monsters that belonged to a frightened little girl.</p>
<p>The Joker had dominated the news all year. After the countless robberies and killings, people worried he was going to be the next Jonathan Crane.</p>
<p>I tell myself I would have gritted my teeth and killed him so I could go home. I would have caved in his head with a gold figurine of a woman holding a candlestick so I could see my dad again. I would have buried the part of me that would have chosen to die rather than commit murder. That’s what I tell myself, and I realize I’m doing that a lot recently: telling myself things that aren’t really true.</p>
<p>But I’d frozen, like I was that seven-year-old kid again who’s lying beneath the covers and hears a noise in the dark, heart thudding so hard she thought she might throw up.</p>
<p>Yes, I’d been stupid enough to think for a second that maybe I’d had a chance against a knife. But now I knew the feeling of the air crumpling inside your lungs as you stand and wait to die.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The Joker gently lifts me up off the terracotta tiles.</p>
<p>“Now <em>that</em> was something I didn’t want to have to do,” he says, then “Ah-ta-ta-ta,” when I try and struggle, warning creeping back into his eyes.</p>
<p>My body had shut down during the pain. I wasn’t familiar with survival mechanisms, but I feel sapped of energy, my eyelids threatening to close no matter how hard I try and fight against them.</p>
<p>There was an elaborate cuckoo clock fashioned to look like a winter lodge sitting on a dresser across the room. As I was slammed up against the wall, my feet no longer touching the floor, I didn’t have the guts to look into his eyes. Instead, for a split second, I’d made out the intricate details of the tiled roof, the wooden slats of the little cabin itself and the double window just above the clock face; it was open and I could just about see the beak of some bird poking out from the hollow. I wondered if the store owner had made it himself or was just fixing it up but I’d revelled nonetheless at the love and care that had so obviously gone into it.</p>
<p>With the Joker’s hands now clamped around my biceps, I can feel the crack of the sconce behind my head; the flash of rage after he’d realized I wasn’t giving him my full attention. My eyes had darted back to his, and that’s when they’d landed on the scars either side of his mouth; he’d hurled me to the ground with so much force I’d slid into a table full of tiny porcelain figures.</p>
<p>They lie around me in pieces. My legs threaten to buckle as he raises me to my full height. I try and scream, but it comes out as a strangled choke before I’m whirled around with my back against his chest and his hand is across my mouth. My feet slide on the broken shards until his knife comes up to hover above my cheek and I go still.</p>
<p>He’s breathing heavily from the exertion. “We’re not gonna have any more of that, beautiful,” he says. “I told ya I’d have to do something that wasn’t very <em>nice.</em> But at least now we understand each other. Hm?”</p>
<p>The back of my head throbs and I can feel an alarming trickle of something warm on my neck.</p>
<p>“Do we understand each other?” he asks again.</p>
<p>The knife presses into my cheekbone, and I nod as best I can, a tear running down my cheek.</p>
<p>“Ah, good girl.” He squeezes me and I give a violent shudder.</p>
<p>I feel him look up towards the doorway that leads back onto the shop floor, and he gives a deliberate jerk of his head as if ordering someone over. My eyes widen when I see a small group of people standing there, trying for all the world not to seem as if they’ve been looking inside at us. I wonder when they’d come downstairs and if they’d enjoyed watching the Joker almost beat the life out of me.</p>
<p>A young guy in a leather jacket with hair that curls beneath his ears enters the room, edging past the broken porcelain on the floor over to the door that leads out onto the alleyway; the door that would have been my escape route. With a pang in my chest, I watch as he sticks a key into the padlock and unbolts it, stepping outside into a light drizzle that begins to settle upon his shoulders.</p>
<p>“Take her bag,” says the Joker before he begins steering me out the door, and I manage to crane back my head to see a guy with dreads and serious arm muscles lean down to hoist my bag onto his shoulder.</p>
<p>I blink as we hit the wall of rain, specks of moisture dusting my eyelashes; but it doesn’t stop me from catching sight of a man in a pale yellow shirt and owl-like glasses sitting slumped with his back against the mildewed brick wall, gaze dead and unseeing.</p>
<p>I have to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from screaming, and the Joker pulls me tighter against his chest.</p>
<p>About twenty yards away is a hunter-green van sitting in the shadow of the building adjacent to the back of <em>Antiques.</em> I almost trip on a rut in the ground when I recognize it as the one from Chase Gardens last weekend. My brain kicks into overdrive: the Joker can’t really be forcing me down this alleyway towards it. Because that would mean he’s taking me somewhere. Which isn’t possible because he should have killed me by now. So how am I still alive?</p>
<p>Through the roaring of the blood in my ears, I hear a lithe set of footsteps draw nearer to walk almost level with the Joker but still a pace behind. I look to my left to see with a stab of surprise that it’s a girl who’s perhaps only slightly older than I am. She has long, raven hair that swings at her elbows. It hits me in the gut that she perfectly matches the description of the girl who picked up <em>An Introduction to Media Communications; </em>for some reason I still find it funny that the bookstore owner thought we were in some petty squabble and that she wanted to beat me to something. I wonder what she’s doing here, what any of them are doing here. Could she be with him against her will?</p>
<p>But as we walk, the bounce in her step becomes even more apparent, the way her eyes flitter over to him.</p>
<p>Before I can scrutinize her any further, the Joker swivels me around once we reach the van and pushes me against it with a metallic thud. He delves into one of his pockets and I can’t help but take in his full attire for the first time: beneath his jacket is a green waistcoat, with a grey-blue shirt made up of hexagons. His tie is like one of those optical illusions, and I notice there’s a dark spot of my blood on the area above his sternum.</p>
<p>He sees me looking at his chest and pushes a hand through his hair, now growing damp with the rain. I narrow my already heavy-lidded eyes at him as he finally takes something out of his pocket, and I’m faced with the sight of my phone held between his gloved fingers. My stomach writhes as the knife is brought up to my mouth, promising to tear into it like a fishhook if I make a sound.</p>
<p>“Just one more loose end we need to tie <em>up,</em>” he tells me as I begin to wonder why he’s not wanting to get out of here as fast as possible.</p>
<p>I get a glimpse of my phone screen, droplets of rain already gathering on it, before he pushes it against his ear: my dad is still on the line after eleven minutes. I ask myself how much of the Joker’s beating he could hear, and I feel fresh tears blur in my vision.</p>
<p>“I’m afraid Cora can’t talk right now, Mr Mayor,” he says. “And I’m sure you’re gonna be real busy once the <em>po-lice</em> get there to trace this call, so I <em>really do</em> hate to have to tell you this but she’s gonna have to check in with you later.”</p>
<p>“You listen to me, you son of a bitch.”</p>
<p>If it wasn’t for the knife biting into my lip, I would have jerked. There’s no sense of comfort at hearing my dad’s voice like this; the Joker leans closer to me so that I can hear him more clearly, his stringy hair tickling my skin.</p>
<p>“Now, you tell me <em>exactly</em> where my daughter is right now, or I will <em>personally</em> oversee that you are admitted to solitary confinement at Arkham Asylum where you can spend the rest of your days taking your meals through a straw. Have you got that?”</p>
<p>The Joker’s eyes roll upwards as if he’s a kid in class and he’s just heard there’s a pop quiz. “I wonder if you want to take a chance to <em>re-phrase</em> that sentiment, Mr Mayor,” he drawls. “Y’see, I’ve got Cora right here: I’m looking into her big, brown eyes… and y’know what? My knife might just <em>slip…</em>”</p>
<p>Ice shoots through my chest.</p>
<p>“Okay, okay!” I hear my dad scramble. “Look, please. I will do <em>anything…</em>” He separates out each word; so different to the easy, relaxed flow of his voice at home when we’re not skirting around each other.</p>
<p>“Good. Glad we’re on the same <em>paaage.</em> So, I’m gonna run something past you.” The Joker narrows his eyes and looks into the distance; a yuppie pitching his latest business idea. “Here it is. You’re gonna forget all about your daughter. <em>Com-plete-ly</em> rule her out your life. All she’ll cause you from here on out is pain. Endless, consuming <em>pain.</em>”</p>
<p>His voice trembles into a growl. I stare up at him, my mouth open.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to go through that, Mr Mayor. Oh no, not after everything you’ve already been through. Life just hasn’t been fair to you, has it? But you know what? You can <em>do</em> something about it. Cut yourself off. Quit your job. Get a holiday. Adopt another cat. Do what you have to. ’Cause you won’t get another… <em>op-por-tun-it-y</em> like this to trot off like Gotham’s little show pony you are. Now, have <em>you</em> got that? Mr <em>Mayor?”</em></p>
<p>The Joker stands and waits for a beat before ending the call. The rain’s starting to pick up now, and he drops the phone to the damp ground before grinding it beneath his shoe. I stare down at it, stunned, whilst the rest of the Joker’s “gang” snicker around us, albeit seeming restless to get under cover.</p>
<p>My jacket is soaked through, and my jeans are heading the same way. My fists clench by my sides, but although there’s anger, it’s overcome by a flood of memories from a night four years ago when my dad first got the call about Mom. I remember the starchy crackle of bed covers across my face from that Tuesday morning, my mind reeling together a collection of reasons why it’d taken her three days to come home from a trip to the store. I remember a constant feeling of dread in my stomach that hung over me like sodden drapes. I remember three nights of grey kebab meat hastily picked up after work and vomiting, the rim of the toilet bowl cold against my young fingers; I’d shivered as I’d gone to bed, hoping my dad hadn’t heard me from downstairs. That was when the phone had rung.</p>
<p>It’s like a punch in the gut when I realize this is what’s in store for my dad yet again. I imagine him sitting at the counter in our empty apartment right this second, the silence buzzing around him just as loudly as if he still had his wife and daughter there. It’s this that makes me fight to remove the Joker’s hand from my mouth while he’s distracted by his cronies around us.</p>
<p>“Not a good move, sweetheart,” he says as he slams me back against the van and waves the knife in front of my eyes. “I don’t want to have to use this too soon during our time together. Blood always tends to <em>stain.</em> And <em>yours</em> is no different.”</p>
<p>With rain dripping from his hair, he stares down at me with his lips pulled into his mouth, until he decides that I’ve understood. Then, he steps aside and the man with the dreads comes over to us, opening the back doors of the van. The Joker stands and watches as the man lifts me by the arm as easily as if I’m a toddler and leaps up inside the dry space.</p>
<p>My heart pounds as I take in two rows of seats each fixed to the left and right walls. Black gear bags are strewn everywhere and there’s a stench of something like death and decay. The man unloads me into a seat before taking one next to me, a gun resting on his knee. The girl also jumps up and reclines into one opposite me, along with a beefy man with a nose that looks like it’s been broken one too many times. There’s no windows back here, and so we sit in the gloom. The only source of light is from the windscreen up ahead.</p>
<p>The Joker lets himself into the passenger seat, plopping my bag on his lap and sucking on his lips. I hear him muttering to himself as the man with the leather jacket gets behind the wheel. The engine comes on with a low growl. The tires beneath us skid, and with a lurch we’re pulling out of the alleyway.</p>
<p>My knee starts to bob without me telling it to. I clutch the underside of my seat and, slowly, so I don’t freak out the guy with the gun beside me, I reach up to prod at the gash at the back of my head. It gives a dull sting and I bring down my hand to see droplets of blood staining my fingertips.</p>
<p>The Joker is making noises as he goes through my bag. I peer over at him out of the corner of my eye and see him take out my purse, unclipping it and nosing through my cards and old receipts.</p>
<p>I decide I need to focus on one thing at a time if I’m going to survive this.</p>
<p>I feel again at the back of my head. Maybe I’d get away without stitches, since I’d heard somewhere that head wounds could be relatively minor and still give out a lot of blood, but I needed to clean this up. Too bad the Joker didn’t seem to have a med-kit on hand. I blot the wound with my jacket sleeve.</p>
<p>As I do, for some warped reason, I start thinking about the big test in a month and how I’m going to miss it. Alice, Brianna and Molly will wonder why I’m not at school. Will I be on the news? Will the police comb through our apartment to try and come up with a possible motive? I can’t help but hate the idea of them sifting through all my stuff, opening up my wardrobe, rummaging through my chest of drawers, peering under my bed. <em>An Introduction to Media Communications</em> is still under there; will they be able to find prints off that? What will my dad think when he sees my stash of college prospectuses?</p>
<p>I lean down and press my face into my hands above my thrumming knees. There must have been something I could have done differently, something I could have done to escape this. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in lying to my dad today, maybe I’d have been more alert and I would have realized after jumping in the car with Mal that something was clearly very wrong.</p>
<p>Did I feel betrayed? Should I feel a sense of hollowness that the man who’d driven my dad around throughout his mayoral campaign, and had taken me on countless trips to the ice-cream store with my friends, had delivered me to an outlaw? I couldn’t understand why I didn’t.</p>
<p>My sneakers are making a drumming sound on the metal floor.</p>
<p>“Hey, you got an itch or something?” the girl snaps.</p>
<p>I sit up and give her a tired look – there’s no way I’m in the right state of mind to argue with her – but I clench my fingers into the tops of my damp jeans and jam my heels into the floor.</p>
<p>The blare of the radio enters the enclosed space. It’s tuned to a news station and a female voice relays today’s headlines. When she comes to my dad’s campaign for re-election, the Joker and everyone in the van let out varying levels of laughter with sardonic whoops and cheers. I wince. Even the man with the dreads next to me cracks a grin.</p>
<p>“He’s got my vote!” the guy with the broken nose calls out.</p>
<p>“Not mine,” I hear the girl say in a voice that’s laced with something calculating.</p>
<p>Squarely meeting my eyes, she glances to the front before continuing: “I’m going to enjoy messing with him now you’re here. Maybe we’ll send him a couple of gifts.”</p>
<p>Before I can start to wonder what she’s talking about, she leans over across the narrow space so that she’s right in front of me and takes something out of her pocket. In the dark of the van, I make out she’s holding a smooth, black handle. She snaps a blade out of it and the man next to her cuts her a look.</p>
<p>“Maybe take off a lock of hair,” she goes on, appraising me.</p>
<p>I stare at her as she nudges the hair that’s falling next to my face with the knife so that it skims an inch away from my eye. My heart doubles. Beside me, the guy with the gun shifts in his seat.</p>
<p>“Maybe cut off a few fingers.” She gives me a smile I know she’s learnt from the Joker himself. She taps the blade on the tops of my hands that are sitting bunched up on my lap.</p>
<p>“C’mon, Kimberly,” says the guy in the driver’s seat.</p>
<p>The Joker has stopped rummaging through my bag.</p>
<p>“Mail them to him. Periodically, every week. Until he drives himself mad with the guilt. It’s nothing new; only the second time, after all.”</p>
<p>“Shit,” someone mutters.</p>
<p>Even though the van is swaying with the drive, she manages to keep her balance so that she can come so close to my face her breath fills my nose; it’s superficially sweet, like she’s had candy for breakfast.</p>
<p>“I bet it chewed him up for <em>years</em> that he couldn’t save his own wife,” she whispers. “And now, when he couldn’t save his daughter?” She shakes her head, letting the knife dance loosely between her fingers. “I’m going to bet that, real soon, we’ll see a headline on the news: ‘Mayor Garcia, dead after sui–’”</p>
<p>I smack her hand and feel a twinge of satisfaction when her precious switchblade skitters across the floor of the van. There’s a flash of surprise in her eyes, but it’s gone as it’s soon overtaken by deadly promise. Breathing heavily, I glare back at her, all sense of reason now absent from my mind.</p>
<p>The van swerves around a corner and skids to a stop in a quiet street. The guy in the leather jacket jumps over the gap between the front seats and pulls on Kimberly’s shoulder, making her stand up even though they have to stoop beneath the low roof.</p>
<p>He mutters something in her ear, but he breaks off, his eyes widening. “Boss,” he says.</p>
<p>I follow his gaze to where the Joker is leaning between the front seats, shoulders hunched to his ears and his wrists hanging off the headrests. He’s staring straight at Kimberly.</p>
<p>The other two men are stone silent.</p>
<p>Kimberly pulls her lips into her mouth, blinking as if she’s just wandered onto a stage and is dazzled by the lights. She edges back and picks up her knife, tucking it back into the pocket of her jeans. Then she sits back down, almost like she’s saying, <em>Look, no harm done.</em></p>
<p>I can feel the blood has drained from my face. With the anger leaving my body, I’m scared for her. But in some strange way, I feel as if I’m watching this group of people from behind a glass barrier as they wait for the Joker to take his thumb off a primed grenade. With a man as volatile as this around, how used to this sort of thing are his cronies?</p>
<p>When he pops open his lips, Kimberly flinches.</p>
<p>“Well, looks like we all need some time to <em>cool off,</em> wouldn’t you say?” he addresses her, raising an eyebrow.</p>
<p>“Still want me to take us home, Boss?” the guy in the leather jacket breathes.</p>
<p>“No,” the Joker tells him. “Change of plan. No going home for us, yet.”</p>
<p>His gaze slides over to me, and it takes everything in me not to look away. His eyes narrow for a second, almost as if taking a mental snapshot, before he’s turning around and hopping into the driver’s seat.</p>
<p>The guy in the leather jacket shoots a peevish look back at Kimberly before taking the cue to climb into the passenger seat this time. No sooner is he sat down, the Joker steps on the gas, and even the two muscular men left in the back with me and Kimberly have to grip their seats to keep from being pitched to the floor as we reverse out of the street.</p>
<p>My brain tries to make sense of what just happened as we tear down the same barren streets that surrounded the Docks. We veer around corners and speed past Stop Signs, stray cars blaring their horns at us in brutal near-misses that only cause the Joker to throw back his head and laugh out loud. It’s the first time I’ve heard him cackle like this, so wild and crazy that my pulse races.</p>
<p>After a couple of minutes, he takes out a walkie-talkie, and once he begins muttering on it everyone seems to take the chance to breathe.</p>
<p>I keep my eyes on the ground, knowing Kimberly wouldn’t appreciate my concern. But I don’t know if this would have even translated on my face, because I can feel it’s currently marred by discomfort at the look the Joker gave me.</p>
<p>It was almost as if he was saying, <em>We’ll work on it. But well done.</em></p>
<p>I need to get out of here.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter! Things will start getting a bit more violent and Joker-esque from here on out, so just a warning. Hope you enjoy it!</p>
<p>Thank you guys for your kudos!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Desperate Measures</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first things I see when we swerve to a halt are fat, grey buildings. My knuckles practically creak like old wood as I uncurl my fingers from the seat, heart still hammering from the drive, and try and peer further through the windscreen. The complex is fenced off by a high wall of wire meshing littered with signs saying NO TRESPASSING and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.</p>
<p>No one has spoken much since what happened between Kimberly and I, but everyone seems keyed up for something; teeth flashed in quick grins, eager sighs, and Kimberly is performing some tricks with her knife that in any other situation I would have found intriguing to watch. She does them as easily as if they’re now a muscle memory, eyes focused on a fixed point ahead of her, and I wonder if she’s only half realized that she’s taken out her knife again at all.</p>
<p>But with the tension from before now subsiding, the adrenaline along with the little energy I had left after the Joker’s raging is leaching out of me. The edges of my vision blur in and out. Looking back at the drive it feels choppy and disconnected, like I’m in the middle of a dream where five minutes can pass in five seconds.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I’ve been listening out for everyone’s names; the guy in the leather jacket, “Caleb,” gets out of the van and goes over to a chain link gate that bars the rest of the driveway we’ve pulled into. Instead of trying to force it open, he takes out another key, and as soon as the way is clear the Joker slams his foot on the gas. We tear through the deserted lot, skidding around a corner before we veer to another stop, now almost completely hidden from the streets surrounding us.</p>
<p>The Joker jumps out the van and I hear his footsteps take him around to open the back doors.</p>
<p>I don’t protest as he reaches in and tugs me outside. My legs threaten to crumple, but whilst everyone else climbs out his hand curls tighter around my wrist in silent warning. By the way he bounces on his toes, he’s feeling a similar buzz of energy to the others, like he’s a spring with all the tension wound up in him. An ache in my shoulders alerts me that I’ve been bunching them up around me, and I feel physically and paradoxically more vulnerable as I attempt to stand up straighter.</p>
<p>We’re stood between two hulking buildings that do nothing to shield us from the rain; the tarmac is now a collection of puddles, skittering with raindrops. I look around for where we’re going to take some shelter, and it occurs to me that none of the buildings have windows.</p>
<p>Caleb jogs around the corner, re-joining us and stuffing his keys back inside his jacket. It’s just as I’m turning away from him that I catch sight of someone standing outside the perimeter of the fence about thirty yards to my left. The shadow between two neighbouring buildings makes it hard to see anything about him at all other than that he’s not moving; all he seems to be doing is watching us.</p>
<p>“What you starin’ at?”</p>
<p>I jerk as the Joker’s face appears in front of mine. He turns it in the direction I’d been peering in, but the man is already slipping away down the narrow passage. After a couple of seconds, once he’s disappeared, I’m surprised when the Joker makes no sign that he’s seen him.</p>
<p>I lick my lips. “I… nothing.” Who knows: maybe it’s a passer-by who’s spotted us and has now run to get help.</p>
<p>The Joker turns to raise a brow at me. “I’m the one who’s meant to have a few screws loose, sweetheart,” he says.</p>
<p>He’s so close I can see the creases in his face paint, revealing spider lines of tan skin. I swallow, growing dizzy with the resolve not to take a step away from him.</p>
<p>As if sensing the wrangling in my head, he grins and his hand around my wrist constricts before he begins to tow me beside him towards a building that sits at the back of the lot, the rest of his gang tailing close behind. We go up a set of stairs that lead to a pair of metal double doors beneath a porch, and Caleb slips past us to unlock those, too.</p>
<p>The change in temperature once we’re inside is immediate and bracing. Chilled, sterile air streams through large vents in the walls. My breath clouds in front of me and I can hear the squeal of my sneakers on the slick tiles. I want to shed my damp jacket but the Joker’s hand around my wrist stops any kind of movement save for simply continuing to walk beside him down the corridor. With my vision hazing in and out, the cool toned light reminds me of my swimming lessons in the leisure center when I was a kid, the rippling of the pool water reflecting up on the ceiling behind my steamed-up goggles.</p>
<p>It still doesn’t occur to me what kind of place this is until we enter another corridor with a wall of viewing windows; they look onto a large room filled with pig carcasses strung up by their legs.</p>
<p>Normally, I wouldn’t have felt such a violent reaction in my stomach; I was a meat-eater and I was under no illusion where my food came from. But with the store owner still sitting slumped in the back of my mind, a scarlet stain blossoming on his abdomen, I have to focus hard to keep my mouth from filling with bile.</p>
<p>But before I can start feeling any sense of hypocrisy in that sentiment, we go through another set of doors and the gory nature of the building becomes even more evident. Blood-red, sticky handprints are smudged over surfaces and door panels. Lining the walls are metal push carts and packaging containers that say RAW MEAT on the sides.</p>
<p>The Joker finally takes us through into a large kitchen area. He steers me over to a stool behind one of several long, sleek prepping counters and forces me by my shoulders to sit down.</p>
<p>“I’ve got to be a good host, now, don’t I?” he says, and something twists in my stomach when he nudges the side of my face with his nose.</p>
<p>He leaves me to stalk over to an empty corner, the walkie-talkie gripped in his hand.</p>
<p>A shudder runs through me. I remove my damp jacket before it steals any more of my body heat before looking around to place the rest of the group.</p>
<p>Kimberly has gone over to one of the three chrome fridges standing against the wall and she’s taking out bottles of vodka and whiskey.</p>
<p>Grinning, she waves them above her head at the others. “Looks like he came thr<em>ough,</em>” she sing-songs, as if someone’s treated them to a round of drinks at the bar.</p>
<p>I hear someone clap their hands and rub them eagerly together.</p>
<p>“He left any mixers?” Caleb asks, going to look over her shoulder.</p>
<p>I’ve already accepted I’m not going to know who they’re talking about as the man with the broken nose, whose name I haven’t heard yet, pushes Kimberly aside so he can go through the second fridge. She takes the bottles over to the counter and unscrews the lids before peeking over her shoulder at the Joker. The look she gives him, a melange of both sadness and determination, is so raw I feel almost guilty that I’ve witnessed it, as she takes a long gulp of the whiskey. She cringes and wipes her mouth.</p>
<p>The man brings out a huge platter of cooked meat from the fridge. He takes it over to the counter next to Kimberly, where the guy with the dreads, “John,” has brought out some plates and glasses.</p>
<p>Everyone crowds around and starts to dig in, except the Joker who’s still a dark, muttering presence in the corner, and for a couple of minutes the kitchen is filled with the tearing of flesh from bone, the clinking of glasses and light murmuring.</p>
<p>Though I have to clench my teeth together when rolling waves of nausea crash over me, I wonder when they could have all eaten last, and I realize I can’t begrudge them their meal in the slightest. Especially when a plate of two chicken thighs slides over to me.</p>
<p>I look up, but no one from the group takes any ownership. I guess the Joker must have signalled to one of them to make sure I’m fed.</p>
<p>There’s still a risk I might hurl, but the need to eat is something I can’t just push aside.</p>
<p>Instead of the antiques store owner with his glazed eyes like a doll’s, I imagine I’m sitting in my kitchen back home, my dad pottering about behind me with the grill as he knocks up some lunch. That squeezing feeling fills my chest and a lump forms in my throat, but as soon as the food enters my mouth it ignites some kind of frenzy. I’m polishing off the two chicken thighs in a matter of minutes.</p>
<p>“Hey.”</p>
<p>I flinch, only to see Caleb standing next to me; he’s holding up the three-quarters full bottle of vodka.</p>
<p>“Need to see that cut on your head,” he says.</p>
<p>I nod and dip my head and part my hair as best I can. Behind me, he unscrews the lid and lets the vodka trickle onto the cut. It stings and I press my lips together, the alcohol cold as it drips down my back.</p>
<p>“Thanks,” I tell him through gritted teeth, and it’s strange because I feel a flicker of hope. Not just that the cut is clean, which is one less thing to worry about, but because none of these guys can do anything without the Joker’s permission; it only makes it hit fully home that for some reason, one I needed to find out, the Joker would like me to stay alive for now.</p>
<p>Before I can mull it over any further, Caleb screws the lid back on the vodka and I sit up straight. I hesitate for a second before the words are already tumbling out of me.</p>
<p>“Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t want to get Kimberly into trouble, or <em>anyone.</em> I shouldn’t have let her get to me.”</p>
<p>Caleb pauses, half facing the others. They’re still talking, thankfully, but I keep my voice low all the same; the Joker is on his feet now, pacing around in vague shapes, though every glance he shoots our way causes my head to spin.</p>
<p>“She deserved it.” Caleb finally shrugs. “It was stupid of her to try and do something like that with him in the front seat. She won’t touch you now.”</p>
<p>“That’s not why I’m apologizing,” I try and explain.</p>
<p>“Look, kid,” he says, even though he can only be five years older than me at a max, “we’re all out for ourselves here, if you hadn’t noticed. The Joker’s got something planned for you; that’s his business. We all know how to stay alive; we don’t need you feeling any kind of pity.”</p>
<p>The only thing I can reply with is a nod.</p>
<p>He turns as if he’s about to walk off, and to be honest I wouldn’t have blamed him, but since the Joker’s voice is still a low drawl in the background he tells me under his breath, “Just keep your head down. Don’t answer back. No one’s gonna protect you here. And don’t even think about trying to run away.”</p>
<p>I watch after him as he takes back his seat with the others and helps himself to more food. That’s when I make the stupid mistake of looking over at the Joker and finding him already staring at me, like he’s a big cat on one of those nature documentaries and all you can see is their eyes poking out from the long grass.</p>
<p>I drop my gaze to my plate, heart thudding.</p>
<p>Not that I was expecting Caleb to give me any pointers on how to escape, let alone anything at all, but I feel like there’s a cavity in my chest that’s only grown wider. I just want to be back in my own living room, and this almost surprises me, since it’s a room I’ve spent less and less time in over the years; like it belongs to my great Aunt or something and I’m never quite sure how much space on the couch to take up. I <em>need</em> to be there, lazing around, eating snacks, watching TV, fixing that damn remote. I need my dad to forget all about that conversation with the Joker on the phone. He’ll forget it all and he’ll be okay and things will go back to normal.</p>
<p>The more I realize how badly I want this, the more I realize it all boils down to one thing: am I willing to risk my life to get there?</p>
<p>Shivering from the cold, when I no longer feel anyone’s gaze on me, I cast a furtive look around the room. The Joker is still waiting for something or some<em>one,</em> and by the way he’s baring his teeth, he’s getting angry at having to wait for so long. And even though his cronies are obviously making the most of being able to eat and drink, I can tell by their uneasy glances at each other they’re picking up on his frustration now as well. How long have we been here now – ten minutes?</p>
<p>I’m surveying what’s behind me when my eyes land on a silver fire extinguisher fixed to a bracket on the wall. Something prickles along my spine as an idea forms.</p>
<p>I try not to get ahead of myself, calmly locating the nearest set of doors in the room: they’re to the left of me. But the Joker’s gang only sit a couple of meters away from them. I bite my lip when it also occurs to me that there’s no guarantee those doors are even open.</p>
<p>I'm going to have to come up with something else.</p>
<p>It’s just then, as if fate is taunting me or if I’ve somehow managed to will it into existence, that Kimberly gets to her feet; I watch without breathing as she goes over to those same doors, pushes them open, and leaves the room. The rest of the group continue to pick at the remaining scraps of their meal.</p>
<p>I’m disturbed when some delirious part of me imagines her waiting just outside those doors, ready to make good on the payback I was wholly expecting for making her lose face in front of her boss. But I force to myself to believe it’s more than likely she’s maybe gone to find more booze or at the very least she’s gone to the bathroom.</p>
<p>Anyway: that’s one of them out the way. And I was more than willing to bet that compared to John and the guy with the broken nose, both brawny and muscular, she was the quickest of the lot.</p>
<p>If I want to do this, it has to be now.</p>
<p>My limbs seem to move of their own accord as I take hold of my dish and get to my feet. I feel some glances pull over to me, but they don’t linger once they catch sight of the plate in my hands and that I’m heading towards the sink. I dump my chicken bones in the trash and then place my dish into the basin, my arms trembling and raised with gooseflesh. The logical part of my brain is screaming at me not to do this, but what choice do I have?</p>
<p>I’m already unhooking the extinguisher from the wall – slowly, as if this is nothing unusual, so as not to blow everything too soon when I need every second I can. It’s weighty but not too heavy for me to run with. My stomach has turned to lead.</p>
<p>It’s when I pull out the pin that I swing it around and make a sprint for the door.</p>
<p>“Boss!” one of the group calls.</p>
<p>As they’re scrambling out from the counter I aim the nozzle at them and squeeze the handle. A fountain of white mist sprays over them – it’s not the explosion of cloud-like foam I was hoping for – but it makes them recoil and Caleb yells, covering his face whilst trying to bat away the chemicals.</p>
<p>And then I’m running, through the doors and along the corridor behind them, flinging the cannister at the ground in the hopes it will trip someone up.</p>
<p>Kimberly steps out of a room, her eyes suspiciously bloodshot in the glimpse I get of her face. My shoulder catches into her but with a lurch I regain myself. Someone is tearing after me, breakneck and frenzied.</p>
<p>Hands grab my hips. I scream as the Joker pulls me back in mid-air so that I land on my front with the force of all my weight.</p>
<p>With a burst of pain and a jarring in my head, the air rushes out of me. I recognize the sensation of being winded from when I was a kid: slipping on the school field still slick with rain, legs flying out from under me like a cartoon and belly-flopping on the wet grass. Then lying there like a fish out of water as I gasped for air.</p>
<p>I hear the Joker’s ragged breathing on top of me and then he’s tipping me over onto my back. My hands are shaking as I try and push him away, the pain still exploding through me and my lungs wheezing, but his hands grip my arms and slam them down either side of me so I’m pinned. He looks so demonic with his hair dangling in front of his face that I scrunch my eyes shut, but he shakes me so hard I’m forced to look at him.</p>
<p>“It’s almost as if you don’t <em>want</em> me to be Mr Nice Guy,” he says, and he lowers his head closer to mine. “Well, that can be <em>arranged.</em>”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I ended up splitting this chapter in half as this felt like a good place to stop. Which means the next one will be up very soon as it just needs some editing!</p>
<p>Every single kudos, comment, subscription and bookmark is much appreciated :) Thank you!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. High Hopes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kimberly is smirking at me as the Joker’s hand shoots down into my hair and he begins hauling me back down the corridor. The gaping ache in my chest is like a boot grinding down on my sternum, and so I can’t even scream as I feel the cut on my scalp split open again.</p>
<p>I’ve blown it. I think it’s this that’s still keeping the air from my lungs; I don’t deserve any kind of relief—even though the voice in my head tells me it was a long shot, that even if I’d somehow managed to make it out of the building I wouldn’t have been able to get past that fence, and if I’d had by some miracle, then I wouldn’t have been able to make it back to Midtown without being shot on sight.</p>
<p>I have to bite down hard on my tongue. I don’t want to be that kid who cries after they lose their own bet. Caleb had warned me not to try and run away. I hadn’t been thinking—I’d just done it. In any other situation my dad would be telling me to face the consequences. Head on. I grit my teeth and let this fill me with a skewed sense of calm. But my insides unravel again once we’re back in the kitchen, and I can’t keep from asking myself what the Joker is going to do to teach me a whole other lesson. To do as I’m told.</p>
<p>I can hear coughing. Caleb is at the sink, washing his face. He shoots me a dirty glare just as two pairs of legs enter the room, and from my vantage point on the floor I see a third belonging to an unconscious body being dragged along between them. He’s hidden by a costume that’s as dark as soot even through the thin layer of mist still hanging in the air from the fire extinguisher. The breath bottles in my chest as I soak in the long, sleek cape and fitted mask. A dozen questions hit me all at once.</p>
<p>One of the men holding him chuckles as he locks eyes with me. Just visible through his thick, shaggy mustache, sideburns and beard is the kind of look you give someone when you’ve told them a joke and you’re waiting for them to get the punchline.</p>
<p>“What took you so long?” the Joker snarls at them.</p>
<p>“We thought some cops were tailing us,” the man answers, that weird look leaving his face as he addresses his boss. “We had to try and swerve ’em.”</p>
<p>“Next time, swerve faster,” Caleb grunts, turning away from the sink and pressing his hands against his damp face to soak up the moisture. His jacket is still speckled with chemicals, and I feel a flicker of guilt.</p>
<p>“What the hell happened to <em>you?”</em></p>
<p>“<em>Her.</em>” Caleb juts his chin at me.</p>
<p>Kimberly gives him a cursory once-over as she and the others follow behind us.</p>
<p>The Joker kicks open another set of doors and pulls me through into a room with bright, stark lights that sear into my pupils. It’s lined with more animal carcasses on hooks, but there’s a large, clear space in the middle.</p>
<p>I recoil, my head banging with blood, but I’m only tugged harder so that I lose my footing and my scalp explodes with a thousand fire-hot needles.</p>
<p>“Make yourselves useful and put him in a chair,” the Joker snaps, and I hear somebody dart back to drag one from the kitchen.</p>
<p>The unconscious body is hefted up into it by the two men. The second guy, in an earthy-green jacket who can’t be much older than I am, same as Kimberly, bends down to tie his hands behind his back with some cord.</p>
<p>As the Joker pulls me over to the other side of the room I strain around to keep the Batman in my vision, desperation now taking hold as I search for any sign of him waking up. But under the harsh lights and away from the extinguisher residue, the suit seems almost forlorn this time. I see a beer belly jutting over his belt and a shell of torso padding that you’d likely wear for sports.</p>
<p>Now I know why the man with the beard had given me that look.</p>
<p>He’s ordinary and vulnerable just like me. I hate that I feel a twinge of disappointment at that, but in the same way I also feel some kind of affinity.</p>
<p>What had he been doing dressed like that out on the streets when there were real criminals like the Joker and Jonathan Crane about?</p>
<p>Still prying at the hand in my hair, I glance back and see the Joker has nearly taken us to the wall. I wonder if he’d known straight away that this guy wasn’t the real Batman. Had he been shocked and angry when he’d realized? Or maybe he’d just laughed.</p>
<p>He finally releases me to dig around for something in his coat pocket, letting me collapse in a heap and clutch my throbbing scalp. Gooseflesh erupts even harder along my exposed skin, and when I look up I see a vent spilling wintry air above me. I’m about to try scrambling away when he yanks me up and threads a black cable tie around my wrists. Harsh, raspy breaths hit my face as he attaches them to the grille across the vent, grasping my chin when I try and pull away.</p>
<p>“I already tried giving you a warm welcome, beautiful,” he says. “Now you’re gonna get a cold one.” He lets me go with a rough jerk and prowls away.</p>
<p>My teeth are already chattering inside my skull, the bitter air seeping into my muscles like a slow-spreading venom. I test the cable, wincing as it cuts into my wrists. I clasp my hands together as if I’m praying, trying to squeeze the feeling back into them, though I’m already growing numb. This isn’t good.</p>
<p>Across the room, the Joker stoops down in front of the man in the chair, whose head is lolling forward on his chest.</p>
<p>He kicks his leg. “Wakey, <em>wakeyyy,</em>” he sings.</p>
<p>It’s almost impossible from where I’m standing to make out the man’s eyes through his mask, but I see his head twitch as if he’s coming to. Letting out a long breath, his chin lifts off his collarbone and a cry escapes him at the sight of the Joker, who’s looking him over like he’s just been presented with an unwanted toy he’s working out how to reconfigure.</p>
<p>“Where am I?” the man asks, his voice quivering.</p>
<p>
  <em>He’s just as helpless as you are.</em>
</p>
<p>I shudder as if someone had whispered it in my ear, glancing either side of me. Where had that come from?</p>
<p>“W-Who are you?” The man is struggling to free his hands. “Please, I was just on the way home—”</p>
<p>“We don't have time for these silly little questions when all I need is <em>your</em> name,” says the Joker, head tilting at him expectantly.</p>
<p>“B-Brian,” the man answers.</p>
<p>“Last name?”</p>
<p>“Douglas,” he says after a pause. “Please, I have a family. They’ll be wondering where I am.”</p>
<p>The Joker’s cronies are edging around to the back of the room so they can get a clearer view of what’s going on. That keyed up buzz from the van is back.</p>
<p>The guy in the green jacket hands something small and silver over to the Joker. At first I think it’s a handgun, but when I look closer I see it’s a camcorder.</p>
<p>The Joker turns it on and flips open the side screen, fiddling with some buttons whilst his tongue pokes out the side of his mouth.</p>
<p>It’s hard to see him clearly now. My breaths are condensing out in front of me and clouding my vision. With each one I can feel myself growing more and more lethargic. Maybe it’s this that cements it in my mind what I need to do, the drowsiness and the overpowering urge to just <em>sleep,</em> the growing exhaustion dulling the edges of everything.</p>
<p>The man with the shaggy beard is dragging Mr Douglas by his chair to a different spot in the room, the Joker signalling with a couple of fingers where to stop while he peers through the camcorder viewfinder. Mr Douglas tilts his head in my direction, and I can’t tell through his mask whether he’s looking at me. I don’t know what expression I could possibly summon across my face to bring him any comfort.</p>
<p>
  <em>There’s nothing you can do.</em>
</p>
<p>Another shiver goes through me. I turn around and squeeze my eyes shut, still hearing Mr Douglas’s whimpers and the screech of the metal chair legs on the tiles. I can’t keep watching him like he’s some zoo animal in a cage. I’m not going to be a part of this sick entertainment.</p>
<p>Above me, the vent keeps spewing out icy air; it’s like fingers walking their way down the back of my neck and down my spine.</p>
<p>I can’t tell how long has passed until I’m shoved against the wall. I turn at the last second so that I hit it sideways, and then the Joker is staring down at me with raised eyebrows.</p>
<p>“Is this not to your liking, doll?” he asks.</p>
<p>“I’m not watching this,” I say through gritted teeth.</p>
<p>“Yes, you are,” he says, and he takes hold of my chin again. “Because if you <em>don’t … </em>you know what will happen.”</p>
<p>I feel the crack of the wall sconce behind my head, the juddering of my bones as they hit the floor.</p>
<p>I nod weakly, a tear running down my cheek.</p>
<p>“Good girl.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Beneath the way my hands are twitching, resenting every second of being so powerless, I only realize I’m transfixed when it’s over. The Joker’s threat still hangs in my ears, but it’s like watching a car flip over and over again and it’s finally teetering to a stop in the middle of the road. The musk of disinfectant covers the smell of raw meat in the room. It’s all the more overpowering now.</p>
<p>Beads of Mr Douglas’s blood keep hitting the floor tiles, sliding down his cheeks like tears.</p>
<p>A hushed calm settles over everyone. The guy with the broken nose pushes his hands in his pockets. Kimberly is staring at something on the floor in front of her, eyes lidded.</p>
<p>From across the room, the Joker is watching me.</p>
<p>I use my last ounce of strength to meet his eyes and shoot him a glare so vile the blood pounds at my temples.</p>
<p>He begins to wander over, the knife dancing in his hand and the blade still smeary with gore. When he reaches me he cuts open the cable tie around my wrists, and I slump into a shivering mess on the ground.</p>
<p>“We’ll meet everyone at the van,” he says, adding: “Someone make sure they grab our stuff.”</p>
<p>The two men go over to unload Mr Douglas’s body from the chair. There’s a squeaking sound as he’s pulled across the tiles and out of the room. I catch sight of his face again, pallid and bare after the Joker tore off his mask. It burns into my brain like an afterimage.</p>
<p>I only realize Kimberly has stayed behind when I hear her say, “Need me to do anything, Boss?”</p>
<p>“How about follow <em>orders?” </em>the Joker says.</p>
<p>He turns a fraction to give her a seething look through narrowed eyes, and her mouth opens like she wants to respond. But then she turns on her heel and hurries after the others.</p>
<p>When he faces me again, I’m almost grateful I’ve sunk into a cold, numb shell. He could hit me right now and I probably wouldn’t even feel anything. But my insides are still unspooling like thread, and I don’t want to admit that I’m terrified.</p>
<p>He shucks off his coat, and I’m just starting to think this is so he’s not hindered when he’s beating me to death, but he kneels down in front of me, pulls me so I’m sitting upright, and in an action that makes me flinch, he sets the coat over my shoulders. I keep trembling even though I feel the warmth almost immediately, my stomach turning over at the sight of specks of blood on one of the lapels. I watch him through eyes that keep threatening to close, tremors wracking my body.</p>
<p>His head makes a tiny bob, like a nod to himself. “Aren't you gonna thank me?” he says.</p>
<p>He must realize that I want to speak, only the words are sticking in my throat. His eyes dart over my face until I manage to summon up the sound.</p>
<p>“What for?” I ask, causing something to tighten in his jaw.</p>
<p>I’m not trying to be impudent. I just know the coat isn’t all he wants my thanks for, and his reaction only confirms this suspicion.</p>
<p>“You really wanna play this game with me, beautiful? I <em>did</em> just kill a man.”</p>
<p>“I don't want to play any kind of game,” I say. I run my tongue over my cracked lips, but even this action is sluggish. “I just want you to tell me what you want with me.”</p>
<p>He lets out a snicker. “Ah … but where’s the <em>fun</em> in <em>that?”</em></p>
<p>“We don’t have much money.” Even as the words leave my mouth I realize how ridiculous they sound, how far off the mark I am.</p>
<p>“Oh, c’mon,” he snaps, bristling. “You think a guy like me is after a little bit of cash?”</p>
<p>I become aware I’m back in a volatile place, though I’m an idiot for thinking I was ever really out of it.</p>
<p>Too fast for me to respond his arm is around my back and the other is beneath my knees. My eyes widen, his stench of chemicals filling my nose as he lifts me onto one of the steel push carts that have been sitting around the building. The sensation of being on wheels makes my head lurch. I have to grip onto the edges so I don’t topple sideways, the joints in my fingers frozen and stiff.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” I ask, glancing back at him.</p>
<p>He just scoots the cart away from the wall and begins wheeling it towards the doors the others left through a couple of minutes ago. He stops us about ten meters away from them and I blink, hardly daring to breathe.</p>
<p>“Hold on tight, doll,” he says into my ear, causing the back of my neck to prickle.</p>
<p>Giggling, he launches us forward so fast the end of the cart hits the doors with a massive bang. They fly open, and as he leaps up onto the bottom shelf so that his feet are off the ground the sterile air blasts my cheeks, the walls of the corridor hurtling past us as if we’re falling. My stomach ties itself into a knot. His hands clasp further down the edges for balance so that they almost meet mine, and the grin on his face splits even wider. I feel him glance at me, and with the sharp breeze stealing my breath, the sense of weightlessness like climbing higher on a swing set and reaching the peak, I don’t know whether he sees the flicker of a thrill that’s fighting its way onto my face too. I stifle it as far down as I can get it.</p>
<p>When we reach the exterior doors of the building the Joker jumps off the cart and slows us to a stop.</p>
<p>My feet slip onto the floor but he’s already catching my gaze, eyes gouging into me like drills. My nails dig into my palms. Thankfully, it’s only a couple more seconds until he seizes my wrist and he begins pulling me outside. It gives me a chance to seethe at how stupid and unguarded I’d allowed myself to be. I can’t let that happen again. It’s like I’ve forgotten to lock something important and there’s an eerie feeling something may have crept inside.</p>
<p>Though the sky is still thick with clouds, the change in temperature now we’re out of the building is jarring; like you’re on vacation and the air outside your cool, air-conditioned hotel apartment is baking warm. I’ve stopped shivering, but the Joker doesn’t make any move to take his coat back as we approach the van. It feels almost slippery on my arms despite how big it is on me, and when I look down I see that it’s inlaid with a dusky red material. I realize I left my own jacket back in the kitchen, and a stupid, inane part of me crumples that we’re leaving it behind.</p>
<p>As we get closer I notice there’s two vans now, the second one almost identical but a dark gray. I guess the other cronies came in this one with Mr Douglas, and I try not to think about the two corpses that are now building a home at the back of my mind.</p>
<p>Kimberly is leaning against the doors of the van we came in. She shoves off them, and as she steps aside I see her lips press together like she’s tasted something awful, turning her head away.</p>
<p>I almost want to nod in understanding when it finally hits me. I’m reaching up to rip off the Joker’s coat when a faint siren in the distance grows loud enough to cause everybody’s ears to prick up.</p>
<p>Even the Joker stills, eyes flicking upwards as if judging how fast and how far.</p>
<p>I swallow, hope flaring in my stomach before I’m bundled inside and onto a seat.</p>
<p>The Joker wrenches the doors closed, ramming himself down next to me. “Time to go,” he says.</p>
<p>“Sure thing, Boss,” says John, stepping on the gas.</p>
<p>I’m just thankful John doesn’t seem intent on trying to kill us as he drives us back out through the complex. When we reach the fence and Caleb has to jump out and deal with the padlock on the gate again, the Joker begins bobbing his knee. Time seems to slow as I realize that each second buys the cops more time to get closer. My hands curl into fists on my lap, eyes fixed on a dark, congealed stain on the floor as the figure I’d spotted outside the fence creeps back into my head. Maybe there is a real chance he tipped off the police and they’re on the way here right now to try and cut us off.</p>
<p>The siren only grows louder and louder when we’re back on the streets again, no matter how many of them John has to backtrack down to try and lose them. It’s just as we’re turning onto another that a blast of red and blue flashing lights up ahead causes my lungs to feel like they’re on the verge of bursting. I’m lifting myself off the seat in an effort to see through the windscreen better, and the Joker curls an arm around my shoulders. Warning me not to put everyone in this van in jeopardy. It’s this that keeps me silent and still, though my nerves are jangling.</p>
<p>When the cop car rushes past us in a huff of air, part of me still coils in anticipation, ears straining for the sound of tires swerving to make a U-turn and begin pursuing us. But with no such sound, and the siren growing weaker in the distance, the van is filled with a collective sigh of relief. No whoops or cheers, though; they’ve had a year of close calls to contend with.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hardest chapter by far for some reason. So. Much. Editing.</p>
<p>I didn't include the Joker actually filming his Batman demands, because it would just play out exactly like the movie! Hope it doesn't come across as too jarring.</p>
<p>Hope you all had a merry Christmas / happy holiday!</p>
<p>Thank you guys so much for your kudos and everything :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Fallout</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="MsoNormal">I keep looking at that same spot of something dried and crusted over on the floor, the edges jagged like it’s the coastline of an island.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Since the only way to see out onto the road is through the windscreen, after that close call with the cops my guess is as good as anyone’s where the second van is now with Mr Douglas’s body.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What he’d said to the Joker is nestled inside my ears.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
  <em> He’s a symbol that we don’t have to be afraid of scum like you. </em>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I know I couldn’t ever be half as brave to say something like that. But it’s almost comforting to have these words to cling onto, like remembering a line from a movie that hits you just as hard every time you hear it. But the Joker’s threat keeps forcing its way into my mind.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
  <em> You want order in Gotham: Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Starting tonight. I’m a man of my word. </em>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His coat is starting to feel as heavy as his arm around my shoulders. I want to shrug them both off but this is a terrible idea, of course. I just wish Kimberly wasn’t reading into it as much as she is by the way she keeps eyeing me, but what was there to read into anyway?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Joker turns towards me. I count the seconds but he doesn’t look away, and so I stare even harder at that blood stain on the floor, his gloved hand like a dead spider hanging by my neck. His free hand takes hold of my chin, steering my head around in his direction. I close my eyes but he shakes me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Look at me,” he says, a warning in his voice.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He’s so close I can make out his manic pupils, dilated like two holes in his face, flickering between both of mine. I try pulling away but he leans in, wearing an amused expression.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You know what you are, beautiful? A clam-<em>ah </em>that I’m gonna enjoy cracking open,” he says, the ends of his stringy hair quivering next to his face. They remind me of my trembling insides.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“No one’s ever called me a clam before,” I say.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The hand that’s hanging off my shoulder lifts to run the back of his finger down my temple. I wonder if he can feel the blood crashing against there.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It doesn’t even matter.” I swallow, the walls of my throat sticking together. “The cops are going to find you soon. You’ve kidnapped two people. Everyone’s going to be out looking for you.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He grins. “I won’t even <em>notice,</em> and y’know why? Oh, and it’s not just down to my brains—I’m a humble guy. I’m not past giving <em>credit </em>where <em>credit’s</em> due.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His voice is low, but I’m pretty sure the others can still make out what he’s saying above the vibrations of the van. Kimberly’s head is fixedly angled away from us towards the front.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Luck?” I say, raising my eyebrows.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“No such thing. There’s only people who make. Things. Hap-<em>pen.</em> Cops who are out for their own <em>ends.</em>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My veins heat up. I think I know why he’s mentioning this.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Is that meant to be admirable, then?” I say with more derision than I was meaning to.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The muscles scream in my neck as the Joker snaps my face up towards the ceiling.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, I’d root for anybody who doesn’t stick to their established <em>molds,</em>” he says.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His grip slackens, letting my head slip back down so I’m looking at the floor.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everything spins, but as I’m righting myself I sense that the atmosphere’s changed in some way. The Joker’s cronies are sitting up straighter. Kimberly is teasing a hand through her hair, letting it curl around her finger. Above the rumbling of the tires, there’s a second where the air feels like it’s being taken in by a collective breath, and then let out with a whoosh like the pressure deflating from a balloon.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Behind the Joker I can see the guy with the broken nose wearing a satisfied smile, and it’s only then that I understand the validation they’d all just been given. How much his words had meant to them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">By the way he’s looking at me, I think he’s expecting them to mean something to me too.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I try and break out of his grip again but he laughs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“All those emotions on the <em>surface.</em> But under-<em>neath </em>… what a goldmine.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A memory floods into my head. It’s Brianna’s cat pouncing on a rat behind some garbage cans, dragging it out into the yard to scoot it around like a rubber ball. To play with his food.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Brianna and I had come back later to find half of the rat still lying there in the grass.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I’m pretty sure you’ll find me disappointing,” I say.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, I don’t think so. We’ve been building up to this for so long. Like two trains headed for impact!”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The excitement is practically bubbling out of his skin. Both his hands are around my face now as he shakes me again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Boss, we’re home,” John says from the front.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I want to sigh in relief, glancing out the windscreen. A sign that says To SHELDON INDUSTRIAL PARK slides out of view as we head down another quiet, derelict street.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Joker releases me to turn and watch John pull us around a bend, up a driveway and through a small tunnel. Out the other side is a courtyard surrounded on all four sides by apartments with tiny balconies. If the crumbling bricks and windows are anything to go on, the place is desperately abandoned.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">John switches off the engine, and there’s a second before everyone climbs out that the silence rings hard in my ears. And it’s just then that something strikes me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">
  <em> That tape. </em>
</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As the Joker’s arm snakes around my waist and he pulls me out of the van, I see a line of mental fragments: Mr Douglas’s eyes fluttering closed … the Joker handing the camcorder away … Mr Douglas’s death rattle … the Joker tucking the tape into his coat pocket.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The coat I’m still wearing. If I took that tape and threatened to destroy it …</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I wouldn’t ever destroy it. It wasn’t up to me to decide who saw Mr Douglas’s final moments.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But if I was going to die, I wanted to know when. And for some reason, I felt even more compelled to find out why.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Caleb jumps out the van and hands the Joker my bag, who shoulders it and immediately begins pulling me towards the nearest of the four ornate porches that sit inside the quad.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As we walk, I can’t help but notice that it’s a beautiful building; there’s a decorative frieze that runs around the whole courtyard, and the porches sit in the shadow of an arcade with high, graceful arches and spiralling columns. There are still some benches around, and I imagine how peaceful this place would have been with its residents strolling around in the sunshine.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the air here feels heavy and dead, with no sounds of traffic. It’s as if we’re in a vacuum. I glance down at the flagstones beneath our feet, repressing a shiver at the weeds poking out through the gaps like tufts of hair.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The lock is busted on the set of doors beneath the porch and so we go straight through into a gloomy atrium.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I think it’s the darkness that makes the tape feel like it’s burning a hole somewhere on me. Almost like a knee-jerk reaction my hand makes an awkward judder upwards in the time it takes to realize what I’m doing and force it back down to my side. I can’t tell whether the Joker has seen, but when his grip transfers to interlace our fingers as we start climbing up the staircase, I’m starting to second guess the whole plan.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Turning onto a landing, the hall runner feels worn and threadbare beneath my sneakers as we pass a row of doors to apartments that are all ajar except for one at the end. We stop in front of this one and John raps his knuckles on the paint-flecked wood.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“It’s us, Finn,” he says.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A few seconds pass before the door opens a couple of inches and a face appears, a scattering of hair falling into a pair of beady eyes. They sweep around at us, lingering on me for a beat before the chain slides across and the door is pulled wide.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“You’ve got her,” “Finn” says, chuckling as he takes a drag on a cigarette. As he steps aside to let everyone through, his eyes travel up and down my body despite the Joker’s coat that’s draped around me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Glad you’re not totally useless, Finn,” the Joker mutters, eyes focused on something past him as he pulls me into a room that’s longer than it is wide, with three large windows and a set of doors that lead out onto one of those balconies.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There’s a stereo nearby playing classical music—Finn hurries over to turn it off as someone shuts the door behind us. It makes a booming, final kind of sound.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Joker releases my hand and steps away from me to offload my bag into one of the high-backed chairs that sit around a circular table by the nearest window. It’s covered in large sheets of paper that look like building plans, and it’s weighted down by a stack of playing cards in the center.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s as he’s got his back to me and everyone is making themselves at home that my brain snaps into gear again. Angling myself towards the door, my hands shake as I feel around the coat. I know I haven’t thought this through at all when I keep coming across knives and switchblade handles. But it’s just as I’m about to give up that I graze something small and rectangular. I hurriedly dive inside for it and only catch a glimpse of the tape as I slide it into my jeans pocket.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Okay. Done. No going back now.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I jump when I feel a pair of hands on my shoulders. But they’re not the Joker’s.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Don’t get used to this special treatment,” Kimberly hisses in my ear, ripping the coat off me in a way that I know would have just looked brisk to anyone else, but I feel her nails catch on my bare arms.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">When I turn around she’s already bounded up to the Joker and is holding out his coat to him. He’s talking to the guy with the broken nose in the corner, discussing something in murmured tones.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I watch the others instead as they all busy themselves around the room. John is cleaning the same gun magazine over and over, Caleb is sitting at the table reading those plans, and Kimberly is now approaching a small television in front of a scarlet red couch.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m just wondering how long they could have been working for the Joker, reminded of their reaction to what he’d said about not sticking to molds, when the sound of a vehicle pulling into the courtyard below causes Caleb to peer out the window.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The guys are back,” he says loudly, rolling his eyes. “Always after us.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finn shakes his head from where he’s leaning against the wall, and he takes another drag on his cigarette. “They scare so easy.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">His gaze slides across to me, and he begins to wander over.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So, the girl everyone’s talking about,” he says, exhaling a cloud of smoke.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Are we on the news?” John asks, looking over at where Kimberly is knelt in front of the TV, a newscaster’s voice a low buzz in the background as they discuss stock prices.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Story broke about half an hour ago,” Finn answers. “They move fast.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He takes a step closer, leaning a hand against the peeling wallpaper next to me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I tell myself to stand my ground, though there’s a burning in my throat and I just want to put as much distance between us as possible.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Glad you’re gonna be staying with us for a while,” he says. Then, even more quietly, “I’ve always thought you could be a lot of fun.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My stomach has just turned over when I hear the Joker call out, “Wyatt!” and everyone in the room stops what they’re doing. I look over and see he means the guy with the broken nose who’s still standing right next to him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the Joker has his eyes fixed on us, his jaw practically grinding. “You can take our guest to her room-<em>ah.</em>”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Sure thing, Boss,” Wyatt says, the bare floorboards creaking as he marches towards me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My heart stutters as I’m dragged away from Finn and over to the other side of the room where a narrow hallway leads off it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Finn—c’mere,” says the Joker.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He’s back in his coat, and the look on his face is almost a replica of the one he’d given me for being stupid enough to answer my dad’s phone call.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I bite my lip, and when I look back I see Finn has taken the cigarette out of his mouth.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Sorry, Boss—won’t happen again,” he stammers.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“I <em>know</em> it won’t.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s just as all the air seems to disappear from the room that my name comes out of the TV. Everyone pauses. Even the Joker, who tilts his head towards it.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A newscaster in a burgundy suit is sporting the classic Mike Engel cocked eyebrow, something Alice and I liked to joke every journalist had to learn how to do if they wanted to make it big. As her voice floats through the room, Kimberly turning up the volume, everyone draws nearer as if pulled on wires.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m surprised when, for a second, there’s a part of me that wants to tell them all to go away so I can watch this alone.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Joker appears beside me. He doesn’t even glance at me, his eyes piercing into the screen, and I notice a knife in his hand that definitely wasn’t there before; by the groaning of some floorboards, Finn is shifting his weight anxiously somewhere nearby.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“The police have launched a full investigation into this abduction and urge that if anyone has any information regarding her whereabouts that they ring the Gotham City Police Department as soon as possible.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It’s a small, gaudy station I’ve never seen before since I wasn’t as good at keeping up with the news as Alice and my dad were. I wonder if Mike Engel’s already on the story and if my dad is sitting on the couch watching him, just the same as this morning. Would he have got a new remote yet so he could change between channels?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I focus back on the news segment, narrowing my eyes to soak up the tears that are making my vision blurry. I don’t want to do this while everyone’s around.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“We must also emphasize the potential danger here, and we stress that all callers will remain anonymous for their own safety. It is believed that the outlaw the Joker, who has orchestrated numerous homicides and robberies in recent months …”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Two pictures materialize on the screen. One is a grainy image of the Joker, head cocked at the camera, and the other is an image of me. It’s what my dad must’ve put forward, though it’s a picture Alice had snapped of me at her barbecue back in July; I was in the middle of laughing at something Brianna or Molly had said, glancing up at the camera, the embarrassment at having my picture taken not yet registering across my face. I can’t even think of a photo my dad had taken in the last four years where I look so relaxed and un-awkward.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“This is a developing story and we will be sure to update you as and when we get more details,” says the newscaster, just as there’s a knock at the door behind us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Finn, the closest to it, goes over to let the two guys from earlier enter the apartment. The one with the scraggy beard comes over to the Joker and begins whispering to him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“As long as he’s nice and fresh,” the Joker hisses back to him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Something in my stomach tells me it’s Mr Douglas they’re talking about, and as some gloved hands curl around my shoulders and push me into the hallway, I keep seeing the Joker carving into his cheeks, his skin splitting open like sliced fruit.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He kicks open a door that leads into a room with a beat-up mattress lying on an old bed frame. This is all I’m able to take in before I’m shoved against the wall and his hands are around my throat.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Everything is a rush and a roar. My hands grab onto his forearms, scratching at him, but he bares his teeth down at me and squeezes my neck harder. I can’t even form any words, a choking, gasping noise forcing its way out of me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“So, I couldn’t help but see what was going on there,” he says, and despite his demented expression he sounds every bit like a manager who’s been called over by an unhappy customer. “I didn’t think I was going to have to do this. I didn’t think I was going to have to <em>deal</em> with <em>this.”</em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I pull weakly at his wrists. I look up at the ceiling, so that when I die the last thing I see won’t be him.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Black spots are rotting away my vision. But then I’m ripped away from the wall. I hit the floor on my side, the air like acid as it travels back down my throat and into my lungs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m retching as the Joker crouches down over me.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Oh, and we’re not gonna have any more escape attempts, are we?” he says. He giggles.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My body twitches as he reaches out to brush a strand of hair out of my eyes and tucks it behind my ear.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He waits, staring at me with raised eyebrows until I’ve stopped wheezing enough to shake my head.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“There we go,” he says quietly.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He puts his hands on his knees to push himself up and heads over towards the door.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">“Now, I’ll let you settle yourself in so you can see all the <em>facilitiesss,</em>” he says, gesturing around the room before letting out another laugh as if this is damned hilarious.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I flinch as he swings the door shut with a bang behind him, listening to the scrape of the key in the lock and then his footsteps stalking back towards the living area. A couple of seconds later, I hear yells that sound a lot like Finn.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I close my eyes and finally allow myself to cry.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Happy New Year!</p>
<p>Hope you guys enjoy this next chapter :)</p>
<p>Kudos are seriously awesome, thank you so much!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Trade Off</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Anthony</strong>
</p>
<p>I’ve only just realized I’ve brought the damn TV remote with me to the station.</p>
<p>I’d been trying to fix it. It’d given me something to focus on. Like a Rubik’s Cube or a stress ball.</p>
<p>Which means the rookie who gave me a lift must have spotted it but decided not to say a word. It makes me kind of like the guy.</p>
<p>He’s gone somewhere and left me alone in the office. To be honest, I can’t help but feel glad. He was jittery; his eyes kept darting up at me, reminding me of a kid who’s trying to do their homework but keeps getting distracted by the TV.</p>
<p>I’d had to put a ban on the television once, for Cora’s sake.</p>
<p>“Two hours’ schoolwork first. Then you can do whatever the hell you want,” I’d said—because it had only been about six months since our lives had been turned upside down, and everything was still raw. A fresh burn that demanded to be felt. Angry and red.</p>
<p>Cora had blinked at me and then gone upstairs to her room with her books. Even after those two hours had passed, she didn’t come back down.</p>
<p>I’m digging my thumb into the ‘CHANNEL UP’ button on the remote. Maybe it just needs some pressure to get it working again. My nail’s starting to rip away from the skin but I can’t stop. Like pressing your tongue against a loose tooth.</p>
<p>The door opens. Jim Gordon gives me a bracing smile as he steps inside.</p>
<p>“Sir,” he says.</p>
<p>I’d always admired that voice of his. It has a softness, but it’s easy to sense the steel underneath.</p>
<p>I discard the remote onto the desk. “Please, Jim, it’s Anthony,” I say, standing to shake his hand.</p>
<p>“If you insist. You doing okay?”</p>
<p>“Could be better.”</p>
<p>He clasps my hand tightly before he closes the door, cutting off the ruckus out in the hallway.</p>
<p>“Listen. We’re gonna find her,” he says, with a confidence that I can’t decide whether I should find comforting. “We’re gonna get her home to you.”</p>
<p>I clear my throat. “Appreciate it.”</p>
<p>“I look forward to asking her about her plans for college.” His mustache lifts at the side. “It’s been too long since we caught up.”</p>
<p>“Well, let’s hope,” I say, but I give him a grateful look all the same. “And, yeah, it’s been a while, right?”</p>
<p>“Try a couple of years.” He smiles one last time before his mouth becomes a thin line. “Anyway, thanks for coming into the station. Just got a few things to run past you, some questions to ask. I want to assure you we’re gonna keep you in the loop as much as possible.”</p>
<p>He pushes his glasses further up his nose; I can tell he’s about to motion for me to sit down. I brace my feet further apart in answer, planting myself, and Jim’s hand stills in the air.</p>
<p>“So, we’re looking for more evidence, of course,” he says, using it to gesture around in the space between us instead. “But we’re pretty sure we know who’s taken her. We’ve cross referenced some eyewitness accounts.” He gives me a grim look. “Since there’s no way of being able to listen to that phone call and have anyone ID her captor’s voice.”</p>
<p>I nod. A key piece of evidence is swimming around my head. I want to carve it out of me like a slab of meat.</p>
<p>Call it a desperate father’s intuition—the way my senses sharpened at those bangs and crashes through the phone. The ache at having to stand there, helpless, listening to my daughter’s pain.</p>
<p>And then that voice came on the line. Yes. I’d bet money on who it belonged to.</p>
<p>“Please, if you would sit down, Anthony?”</p>
<p>Jim’s eyes are entreating behind his glasses.</p>
<p>I look over at the chair. I’d only really sat down before because the rookie was so nervous and I didn’t want to be an asshole. But the memory pierces me again, a jab in the side, of being asked to take a seat in this same, cramped little office, four years ago.</p>
<p>My bones seem to creak as I lower myself back into the chair. Like an old man. Like I’ve aged ten years since this morning.</p>
<p>Jim takes a seat in front of me. “Please, let me know if you want anything. Coffee, water, something from the vending machine.”</p>
<p>I just nod again. The connection between my brain and the muscles that allow me to speak keeps short-circuiting.</p>
<p>“Look, we’ve scraped together a profile of him … the Joker,” he says, causing a wave of ice to crash over me. “Everything this past year, with the exception of the robbery at Gotham National Bank, seems, for the most part, random. There’s a degree of spontaneity in his past crimes. But from what we can gather of this situation, it seems … premeditated.”</p>
<p>It takes a second for this to sink in. “So you’re telling me he may have planned this? Like he actually sat down and schemed this up?” Bile rises in my throat.</p>
<p>“We don’t know this for certain. It’s still theory and guesswork. But by the very nature of this crime, by the kind of man we know he is … when you put them together you can only assume that there’s a strong motive behind this. We have people trying to dig into him as we speak—if he’s ex-Arkham, things like that. Obviously his sanity is in question, but he’s smart. He’ll know there’ll be a heck of a lot of media coverage on this. Much higher demand out for his arrest now there’s a young person’s life at stake. Basically, he wouldn’t risk all this just for a little bit of fun.”</p>
<p>My fingers are gouging into the ends of the wooden armrests, my thumbnail throbbing as it peels further away from the skin. That word. “Fun.”</p>
<p>“So, you’re telling me he needs her for something? You wouldn’t say he’s planning on killing her any time soon?” I curse myself when my voice breaks, and I look down at the coffee-stained carpet.</p>
<p>Jim runs a hand across his mustache. “Like I said, we don’t know any of this for certain. We’re still in the early stages, and this is just—”</p>
<p>“Guesswork. I know.”</p>
<p>I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to calm down, though I can feel it railing inside me like an animal in a cage. Just keep it together.</p>
<p>“I just—I just don’t understand <em>how</em> this could’ve happened. I mean—isn’t there some kind of security at that campus?”</p>
<p>“We pinged Cora’s cell phone via her carrier,” says Jim, “and we managed to find her last known location using the nearest cell tower it came into contact with before the connection was lost—probably destroyed. But it wasn’t anywhere near Gotham University.”</p>
<p>Something clenches in my stomach. “So what was her last known location?”</p>
<p>“Near the Docks. The North River.”</p>
<p>I can feel myself short-circuiting again. “Wait—wait. That’s impossible. She was being driven directly to that campus. I still haven’t heard back from Mal—”</p>
<p>“What’s his full name?” Jim takes out a notepad and flips it open.</p>
<p>“Malcolm Hill. He’s a family friend. This really is impossible. He was taking her to the campus for an open day. She should have been <em>safe.</em>”</p>
<p>“Is Gotham University where she’s planning on going when she graduates?”</p>
<p>“Yes. Yes.” I scrape my hand through my hair.</p>
<p>“And she confirmed that with you? You know what kids are like. Hard to get a straight answer out of them.”</p>
<p>“Yes, we had a discussion.” The words feel like char on my tongue.</p>
<p>“Is it possible she might not have planned on attending that open day?”</p>
<p>There’s a spike of heat and pain as my nail rips open further. I grit my teeth together.</p>
<p>“What are you insinuating?”</p>
<p>Jim blinks at me. “Nothing at all. But, sometimes, with decisions this big and parents only wanting the best for their kids … it can be a difficult time.”</p>
<p>“So, what? You’re saying she might have been lying to me, now?”</p>
<p>“Look, let me get you some coffee—”</p>
<p>I shock even myself when my fists slam down on the desk, causing the remote to bounce onto the floor and Jim to sit up straighter.</p>
<p>“I don’t want any fucking coffee, I just want my <em>daughter!”</em> I shout.</p>
<p>Everything feels like it’s shaking, like we’re at the tail end of an aftershock. Tears have sprung to my eyes. Wiping them away feels like an admission of defeat.</p>
<p>“Just … calm down, Anthony,” Jim says, the softness and the steel now in equal measure. His fingers twitch around his pencil.</p>
<p>Exhaustion cripples me, the air flooding out of my lungs.</p>
<p>“Look, I’m sorry. That was … that shouldn’t have come out.” I press both my hands against my face, as if the brief darkness can cool me down.</p>
<p>“It’s okay.”</p>
<p>He nods at me, like a counsellor who tells you they understand. But there’s something in his eyes, like he’s committing something to memory.</p>
<p>Like he doesn’t want to be seen scribbling it down on his notepad.</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <strong>Cora</strong>
</p>
<p>When I wake up, I feel something tickling my ankle. I’m still on the floor, and when I look down there’s a cockroach on the bare piece of skin between my sneaker and the hem of my jeans. It transfixes me for a second. It’s only when it starts to scuttle up my leg that my senses return to me and I shake it off. It lands near the corner of the room and scurries through a hole in the wall.</p>
<p>I untie one of my sneakers, growing aware of the tight, tender feeling in my neck. I slide over with it to where the bug disappeared and wedge it in there as far as it will go. Who knows how narrow of a gap a cockroach can squeeze through. But it does something to bolster me a little. Like I’ve done something to strengthen my defences.</p>
<p>The room spins when I push myself to my feet, and for one sickly second the spasms are like his hands are around my throat again. Squeezing the air out of me.</p>
<p>I stumble over to the boarded up window and begin stripping away at the cardboard in one of the corners. I stop once there’s an opening about the size of my face, but the glass is covered by a grille of thick, metal wires that looks melded to the wall. The skyscrapers of the Otisburg district are in the not-so-far distance, behind a collection of stark, industrial-looking buildings that must be Sheldon Park. Further to the right, where the rest of the city dissolves into the horizon, the tell-tale spires of Gotham University are like spears against the sky.</p>
<p>I press my forehead against the flaking cardboard, eyes lidded. If I ever get out of this, then I swear I will never have to look at those spires again.</p>
<p>Using the light, I try and gauge how late in the day it is, how long I must have slept. It can’t have been more than a few hours. I shiver at what could have happened in that time, checking myself over for fresh cuts, bruises, hidden wires, anything.</p>
<p>My skin crawls when I lay down on top of the bedsheet, not trusting the bare mattress. It almost collapses beneath my weight.</p>
<p>Everything is quiet and still.</p>
<p>For the first time, I pick a hole in the wall that’s been up in my head since this morning. It’s kept everything at bay for a while, but I can feel the force of it all beating against me. In History, we learned about an ancient surgery where they’d drill a hole into people’s skulls to cure headaches and let out bad spirits. It really does feel like I’m releasing some of the pressure when just the thought of my dad’s reading glasses perched on the arm of our couch causes my vision to swim. I bite down hard on my lip to suppress the sob that wants to explode out of me. How thin are these walls? The last thing I want is for them to hear me cry.</p>
<p>Once, my mom and I had taken a quiet drive outside the city. I was eight, and she’d been losing patience with my dad by that point for working so much. When it was time to head back, I’d pointed at the sky behind the windscreen, because it had turned a pretty pink with streaks of gold lining the clouds. But when I’d glanced over at her to share in my excitement, she was hunched over the wheel, fingers drumming. Her eyes were scouring the street. We were hopelessly lost, it turned out. And, being a little kid, I wondered whether we were ever going to get home. To this day, I still remember I was thinking about two things. One was the fireplace in our apartment in the Narrows; it made the room so warm it was easy to kid yourself the world outside couldn’t possibly exist, not when your rain-soaked shoes were drying by the grate and the crackle of the flames made me think of Christmas. The second was my dad sitting there on the couch. Alone.</p>
<p>I block that wall back up, bringing my knees into my chest and turning onto my side, trying to ignore that squeezing feeling I just can’t seem to shake. Something sticks into my hip. I feel a stab of confusion as I dig into my pocket and after a second the tape, still warm from my jeans, is sitting in my hand.</p>
<p>Slowly, my insides knit themselves together. What the hell have I done?</p>
<p>That’s when the door opens, fast, catching me so off guard that I drop the tape. It clatters to the floor and lies still. Kimberly is standing in the entryway.</p>
<p>“What the fuck is that?” she whispers, her eyes flashing up to mine.</p>
<p>I open my mouth to respond, but I can’t speak. My heart is pumping too hard.</p>
<p>“What the fuck are you doing with that?” she says, louder, though thank God she’s keeping her voice down—the door’s still open.</p>
<p>I snatch up the tape and stumble to my feet, backing away from her.</p>
<p>“Look, look, look—just wait for one second,” I say, holding up my hands with the tape clutched tightly in my left.</p>
<p>She stops in the middle of the room, but her eyes keep darting towards my fist. A wicked smile stretches up her face.</p>
<p>“You’ve really done it now.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, maybe I have,” I say, trying to get a handle on my racing pulse. “Maybe he’ll kill me, I wouldn’t be surprised. I just want to know why he hasn’t done it already, why I’m being kept here like a prisoner.” I make a motion around at the room. “Because I know there’s no way you’ll tell me.”</p>
<p>“You’re right,” she says, with a weird look on her face even though the smile’s still there. “I won’t.”</p>
<p>I eye her warily for a second. Part of me is still expecting her switchblade in my gut.</p>
<p>“Whatever you came in here for, you can pretend you didn’t see this.” My fingers twitch around the tape. “I won’t tell. I don’t want to get anyone in trouble again.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t get me in <em>trouble,</em>” she spits, so venomously I back up another step. “But I’m damn sure I should have waited until he wasn’t around. I wanted to see how much pressure it took before you snapped. And obviously it didn’t take much. You’re just a spoilt brat who’s always got everything she’s ever wanted.”</p>
<p>“Maybe I am.” I sigh, lowering my hands. This isn’t the time to argue with her. “Look, I know I’ve kind of … disrupted your status quo by being here. But all I want is to get as far away from here as possible, believe me.”</p>
<p>“And you think stealing from him is going to help?”</p>
<p>She shakes her head at me, and she blows out some air, puffing her cheeks. Glancing back at the door, she goes over to adjust it so it’s not fully closed but ajar.</p>
<p>“Do you know what you are?” she says, coming back over to me but speaking low. “<em>Selfish.</em> He is going to flip when he needs that tape and realizes it’s not there. He’ll take it out on all of us.”</p>
<p>“I’ll make sure he just takes it out on me.”</p>
<p>“You can’t <em>really</em> think …”</p>
<p>She doesn’t finish. There’s footsteps behind her in the hallway, and then the Joker is pushing the door open. For some reason, by the way he nudges it with the back of his hand, his shoulders even more hunched, it’s like he’s the big bad wolf coming in to eat us both.</p>
<p>My stomach seeps into the floor. I grip the tape tighter in my hand, like I can shield it somehow when his eyes snap the short distance from mine to its jet black casing. There’s no shock or anger. His brows furrow together and he cocks his head at me. It’s not unlike the way a puppy would when they’re being shown something new.</p>
<p>“Thought I heard a little … disagreement,” he says, chewing on the side of his mouth.</p>
<p>“Boss,” says Kimberly, but he brings up his hand, silencing her.</p>
<p>I take another step backwards, my spine almost hitting the cardboard over the window. My sock-clad foot causes one of the floorboards to let out a long creak, grating along my skull.</p>
<p>“Am I not being a good host, doll?” the Joker asks with faux disappointment.</p>
<p>He lets the question hang, coming further into the room. Kimberly glances at me when he gets level with her, but I can’t tell what she’s trying to say.</p>
<p>“Have I been <em>that </em>inattentive to my guest?” he says. “Because <em>obvious-ly</em> … I’ve missed something.”</p>
<p>He’s peering at me, like I’m a specimen under a microscope. I can practically hear my muscles constricting, echoing the groans of the rotten walls and floorboards.</p>
<p>“If you’re going to kill me then do it now and get it over with,” I say, hating the way my voice trembles. “But I want to know why first. Otherwise I’ll break this.”</p>
<p>I hold the tape out from me at an awkward angle, over my foot. I feel a rush of something; it’s like holding something I know I shouldn’t be, like an heirloom I’ve picked up from someone’s mantlepiece that just feels totally foreign and out of place in my hand—but there’s also a weird kind of buzz I can’t put my finger on.</p>
<p>Hopefully it’s clear that I can drop the tape, crush, and then grind it into the floor if they try and make a grab for it. But even just running this through my head feels repulsive. I’ve already sworn nothing is going to happen to the footage of Mr Douglas.</p>
<p>The Joker has stopped moving towards me, but he’s shooting an amused look at my feet. “One shoe …” He glances around the room and spots the other by the wall.</p>
<p>A curse flies through my head as I switch the tape to my other hand. A foot with no shoe isn’t going to do much crushing or grinding.</p>
<p>He giggles. “So, we’ve come up with a little scheme of our own, have we?” He smiles at me, leaning forward. “Y’know, blackmail only works when you can make the mark <em>believe</em> that you’ll follow through.”</p>
<p>“I will. You’re going to kill me. I’m dead if I do and dead if I don’t.”</p>
<p>The words are nails clawing their way up my throat. I don’t want to believe them. I have to cling onto the gem of hope that I can get home.</p>
<p>“And what if I was planning on keeping you alive?” he says, as if he’s just read my mind and decided to taunt me with it. “Don’t ya think you’d be dancing with death there, sweetheart, by destroying my property?”</p>
<p>I swallow. All the moisture has left my mouth. He had to have taken me for a reason. Right?</p>
<p>He takes out a knife from his coat pocket, inspecting it. I can see it’s stained with blood. Finn’s cries creep inside my head.</p>
<p>“I guess we’re at a stalemate then, aren’t we?” the Joker says, his black eyes roving over me.</p>
<p>I shake off the crawling sensation on my skin and glance once at the tape still in my outstretched hand.</p>
<p>“I think I have a right to know either way.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” His mouth peels into a grin. “Well, I think I know how we can get outta this.”</p>
<p>He shoots out his hand, grabbing Kimberly by her shoulder and yanking her to him. Her back against his chest, the knife against her neck.</p>
<p>“No!” I yell, hands quivering mid-air like I’m trying not to frighten someone, though my own heartbeat is crashing in my ears and Kimberly’s face has drained of blood. She’s hanging onto his forearm. But I can’t help but notice the hesitant way she holds it, not wanting to crumple his coat.</p>
<p>He’s grinning over her head.</p>
<p>I hold out the tape to him. “Please, just take it. Do whatever you want with me. But let her go.”</p>
<p>“Aw, but that’s no fun … Y’know, I haven’t told you the story of how I got my <em>scars.</em>”</p>
<p>His voice has grown even more conversational. Friends catching up over coffee.</p>
<p>“Let me tell you about my mother,” he says, though I’m visibly shaking, focused on Kimberly who is looking at something behind me. I don’t have to turn around to know it’s the hole in the cardboard, the window behind it, the light pushing through.</p>
<p>“She was … well, you could say she was never really the <em>up-beat</em> type,” he says, his gaze rooting me to the spot. “Always a little on the morose side. Glass half empty kinda girl. One day, I ask her, why’d she have to be so glum? Why’d she have to be so <em>serious</em> all the time?</p>
<p>“My <em>father</em> heard. He was in the next room. Those walls were paper thin, let me tell you. You could hear <em>every-thing </em>in that house. <em>Every</em> time he brought home his little <em>squeeze</em> back from work. So, he came into the kitchen, where my mother and I were, and y’know what he said?”</p>
<p>Kimberly has stopped breathing. The knife is pressing so hard into her neck a droplet of blood is oozing a path.</p>
<p>The Joker snickers. “He said, son … haven’t you worked out by now it’s all ’cause of your sorry self? <em>A black hole—that’s what you are. Sucking in all the light. Actually, that’s what Shirley calls you. Both of you.</em></p>
<p>“Now, my mother doesn’t like that for some reason. So she looks right at me. She takes a knife from the counter. She bends down, and she says, right in my face, with my father there watching, <em>We don’t smile enough for ya, honey? Let me just fix that.</em>”</p>
<p>Staring at me, a weird look on his face, he moves the knife to press into the corner of Kimberly’s mouth.</p>
<p>“Stop!” I shout, my voice a strangled choke. I take a step forward but the room is spinning. “Please,” I say, breathing heavily, “this is my fault, not hers.”</p>
<p>The Joker sighs, cutting a glance at me. “You <em>sure</em> I can’t tempt you to a physical demonstration? How about, in exchange, I answer one of your questions? Heck, I’ll even let you walk out this door right now and give you a ten minute head start to run to wherever you want.” He nods his head behind him at the hallway. “See how far you get. Whaddaya say? I am a man of my word, after all.”</p>
<p>“Please, just let her go.” I hold out the tape to him again.</p>
<p>Another long breath leaves him, ruffling the hair by Kimberly’s ear. Then he shoves her onto the floor and holds out his hand.</p>
<p>I cringe as she lands hard, her hair falling over her face. I give the tape one last squeeze; it feels like it’s almost fused to my skin, like it’s a part of my body now. I toss it over to him and he catches it easily. He slips it into his pocket.</p>
<p>As soon as it’s gone, it’s like I’m back in that office. Alone in the dark. Waiting for whatever would come out of the shadows.</p>
<p>The Joker prowls towards me, almost shivering with bloodlust. There’s nowhere for me to go except around, and so when his hands reach out for me I try and dodge under them. He grips my hair and pulls me back in front of him, craning back my head, the knife pressing against my cheek.</p>
<p>“Who says I don’t want you around just for a little bit of fun?” he growls. “Hm?”</p>
<p>My neck aches with the ghost pressure of his fingers. The sensation of being helpless, powerless, with the air running out. I realize I’ve never hated a feeling so much in my life, even as the knife moves down to sink into my bottom lip. The flesh splits, giving way. I can’t scream. I feel paralysed beneath his hungry expression, even as the pain keeps building and building, until after a couple of seconds the blade is gone and my vision is hazy and his hands are grabbing either side of my face.</p>
<p>“You’re coming with us tomorrow,” he says.</p>
<p>His gaze twitches over me. I can’t make out his expression, my eyes unable to focus. I feel a pressure on my forehead, like he’s leant his own against it, before I’m thrown onto the floor.</p>
<p>My arms buckle, and a drop of blood hits one of the floorboards, a wet trail running down my chin. His footsteps creak towards the door, and when I look around he’s slamming it shut behind him.</p>
<p>There’s no sound of a key, but Kimberly is kneeling exactly where she fell, hands clasped together on her lap and her head bowed. In that second, she looks more of a prisoner than I do.</p>
<p>I wipe away the blood. “Are you alright?” I ask, going over to her, but she recoils from me.</p>
<p>“Don’t touch me,” she says. “I’m fine.” A trickle of her own blood has congealed down her neck.</p>
<p>“Here, sit on the bed.” I gesture at it and back away, giving her room.</p>
<p>At first, I think she hasn’t heard me, too lost in her own thoughts. But then she rises to her feet, slowly, and sinks down on the edge of the mattress. She looks dazed.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to breathe more steadily. “If I’d known he would do that, I would never …”</p>
<p>I’m surprised when she lets out a small chuckle.</p>
<p>“If you think that’s the first time he’s done something like that to me then you’re dead wrong,” she says, looking across the room at the far wall. “That’s the difference between me and you. I can take it.”</p>
<p>I can’t think of any other way to respond except to nod. “I guess so.”</p>
<p>There’s enough space next to her on the bed. I sit down, taking her in out of the corner of my eye. This girl, who couldn’t have been more than two years my senior, who had just had a knife pressed against her neck and was now smiling.</p>
<p>“Why don’t you leave?” I whisper.</p>
<p>Her head tilts a fraction towards me.</p>
<p>“You could just walk away. Start a new life somewhere else. Aren’t you worried he could kill you one of these days?”</p>
<p>The sigh she lets out seems so fragile for a second I’m worried it’s going to break.</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t understand.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Started off this chapter with a POV switch! Hope you guys enjoyed it :)</p>
<p>I know I've said this so many times, but: thank you so much for your kudos! Haha!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Metamorphosis</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Almost 24 hours ago, I was sitting in the back of Mal’s car. I remember the tires running against the tarmac and the give of the leather seat against my shoulders. Funny how that feels like it belongs to a different universe now.</p>
<p>The Joker is keeping a surprisingly low profile as the van crawls around the empty streets. We’re back in Midtown, and it’s dawn. The flashes of sky I catch through the windscreen are an inky mixture of navy blue and burning peach, like smouldering embers. Most of Gotham will still be asleep, perhaps only just rising. They’ll yawn and stretch and shuffle into the kitchen to make coffee.</p>
<p>A pair of hands had yanked me out of the state of half-sleep, half-surveillance I’d crawled into for a few hours. Stumbling out into the dark, hurriedly shaking off the last remnants of sleep, they’d held fast to my shoulders. As I climbed up into the van I’d made out the pinched faces of Kimberly, Caleb, Wyatt and John. Finn I guessed was staying behind to hold the fort.</p>
<p>The musky scent of the mattress is clinging to the inside of my nose. But it does nothing to overpower the stench of death in here. Mr Douglas is lying in a bag at our feet. It’s like gone-off meat, tinged with copper. I’m breathing him in, his cells, latching onto the walls of my throat and lungs. I cough but it turns into a gag.</p>
<p>Kimberly meets my eyes from where she’s sitting opposite.</p>
<p>It’s this, the flood of memory, that distracts me enough to keep me from emptying my stomach—her, sitting on my bed, shoulders slumped, eyes as dead as a mannequin’s. I didn’t speak, not wanting to shatter the moment it seemed like she desperately needed, until finally she had pushed herself to her feet and almost bolted from the room. The key in the lock was the only sign she hadn’t been so completely cocooned in her own thoughts enough to forget I could try and escape. Though, would I have tried if she had?</p>
<p>She blinks before turning more fully to face the front. The Joker’s eyes are fixed on me in the rear-view mirror.</p>
<p>I look down. What did Kimberly see in him that I couldn’t? Those glances she gives him, the longing. Where I see a deranged psychopath, she obviously sees so much more. Had she once been just like me? Had he taken her for some secret purpose and somewhere, along the way, had she begun to … <em>fall in love?</em> Because that was what was in her eyes when she looked at him. Love. The all-consuming, indiscriminate kind. The dangerous kind, the kind that blinds you.</p>
<p>Was that how she had learned to survive? To be okay with all the death and destruction? Because it was clear to me that neither she nor any of the Joker’s cronies, perhaps with the exception of Finn, were bad people. But then why were they hanging out with a man like the Joker?</p>
<p>He’s stopped watching me, peering instead out at the gloom of the road, and it’s then that it occurs to me what I have to do. Even though it terrifies me. It feels like someone’s wrapped a cold hand around my heart and begun to squeeze. Because what if I go too far? I imagine myself pushing off from the shore and onto a vast, dark lake, drifting further and further out, until I can no longer see the way back. But that’s what a risk is, isn’t it?</p>
<p>I have to get to know the Joker. Not <em>get to know</em> as in the kind of way you’d strike up conversation with someone in your class. No, I need to know him, as in <em>really </em>know him, understand him, peel away the layers. As easy as sticking your arm inside the mouth of a human-sized Venus Flytrap whilst avoiding the trigger hairs that will spring its jaws shut. I have to know my enemy.</p>
<p>By the time we jerk to a halt, bile has risen up my throat, both from thinking over this new plan and the travel sickness—funny, since I never used to get travel sick. I swallow it down and scramble out onto the sidewalk with the others, the breeze rippling against my bare arms. But then I realize where we are, and my stomach turns to lead. We’re around the corner from City Hall. Goosebumps pop up across my skin. Because it can’t be a coincidence that City Hall houses my dad’s office.</p>
<p>I can make out a slice of a street that lies on my bus route to school, though I’ve never seen its name. I’ve been down it a thousand times, but with the sun still refusing to rise and the dark clinging to everything like a shroud it negates any sense of comfort I might have taken from its familiarity.</p>
<p>Wyatt and John are dragging Mr Douglas’s body out onto the sidewalk. As I watch them, a voice breathes into my ear, ghost-like.</p>
<p>“It’s almost like Gotham <em>changes</em> at night—all the rodents come out to play, the <em>masks</em> come off … or on, depending on who you talk to. Now … we watch it change back.”</p>
<p>The Joker’s bone-white face appears, pressing a gun against my temple. It’s a fight not to collapse.</p>
<p>“Afraid we’re on a tight schedule here, doll. So, if you pull any more little stunts …” There’s a tap-tap-tap of the barrel along my skull. “Then I’ll have to shoot ya. Which would be both messy <em>and</em> time-consuming.”</p>
<p>My stomach acid curdles. I shake my head frantically. “I won’t run.”</p>
<p>His lips pull at the sides, and despite the dark I can see every one of his yellow teeth. “I need a <em>guarantee.</em>” He acts like he’s thinking for a second. “<em>Swear</em> on something.”</p>
<p>“My dad’s life.” I blink. “Promise me you’re not going to hurt him, and I won’t run.”</p>
<p>It’s the only way I can think of that will protect him—the Joker said himself he was a man of his word. Because what if we’re going to hide out here and launch a raid on City Hall? What if we’re going to take my dad hostage? What if—?</p>
<p>“Agreed.” The Joker gives me a wink as he takes the gun away from my head.</p>
<p>
  <em>Know your enemy.</em>
</p>
<p>“What are we doing here?” I ask, looking over to where Caleb is pressing digits into a keypad on the wall of the building looming over us. The whole street seems commercial, everything sleek and made up of rows of glossy windows. Above some of the entrances are names in either fancy cursive or stark, robust lettering. Company names. “What are you going to do?”</p>
<p>“What are <em>we</em> going to do,” he says.</p>
<p>He’s watching Caleb. There’s a beeping noise from the keypad, and immediately he grabs my hand, dragging me through the revolving glass doors. The others stick close behind, Wyatt and John lifting Mr Douglas easily between the two of them. Once we’re inside, Caleb goes over to another keypad in the corner to turn off the beeping.</p>
<p>Beneath our feet is a hard, lined carpet, the kind that’s easy to vacuum. The back wall behind the reception desk is covered in fake vines, interspersed with coils of Christmas lights left on a low setting. The Joker leads us over to two elevators in a small alcove just as two beams of light swing around the walls. Whirling around, I see Kimberly and Caleb are holding flashlights.</p>
<p>“What do you mean <em>we?”</em> I ask the Joker in a whisper, turning back to him. I get the feeling someone could jump out at any second.</p>
<p>He stabs the UP button on the wall just as Wyatt drops Mr Douglas’s legs unceremoniously on the floor, doing the same with another. “Talkative today, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>I bite my lip.</p>
<p>“It’s time I made you less of a spectator and more of a <em>participator,</em>” he says. “You need to get your hands dirty.”</p>
<p>The elevator doors slide open. Someone is sitting slumped against the wall. The breath sticks in my throat as Caleb shines his flashlight over him. There’s a glint of his security badge, and the pool of blood in the crease of his stomach glistens. I shrivel, but the Joker wraps an arm around my waist and walks us in to stand on the left. Caleb and Kimberly also enter and stand opposite, with the man’s legs spread out like a divider across the floor between us. The Joker presses a button and the doors seal us off from the lobby. There’s a sickly judder as we’re pulled upwards.</p>
<p>I count the seconds, up to fifteen, as the jazzy elevator music settles over us. I focus on the man’s bullet wound. How wet the blood is, how far it’s spread. If I were an expert, I’d be able to gauge how long ago he’d been shot. I try and come up with an estimate. 30 minutes?</p>
<p>A thumb is chafing against my ribs.</p>
<p>Maybe even 20, I think desperately. I focus on other things. How new his uniform looks. If he has a wedding ring. I’m glad that, save for the flashlights that are aimed fixedly at the ground, the elevator is almost pitch black and Kimberly won’t be able to make out what’s happening.</p>
<p>The doors open with a ding, and the Joker pulls me out into the hallway with a giggle.</p>
<p>A balding man somewhere in his fifties and completely covered in tattoos, an inked snake tongue protruding from his mouth, pokes his head around a corner before stepping fully out. He gives the Joker a nod.</p>
<p>“Boss.”</p>
<p>We follow him down the hallway and into a large office space. Windows stretch from floor to ceiling and take up the entire left wall—there’s a view of almost the whole of Midtown. But one of them has been smashed, leaving a gaping hole spilling cold air. A cable is clamped to the ceiling, leading outside. As we get closer I see the cable stretches at a downward angle all the way over to the roof of a smaller building that sits diagonally to ours. I peer beyond <em>that</em> building, heart thudding as a gust of wind rushes through the broken pane. City Hall is stationed almost directly adjacent to it.</p>
<p>A slim man is staring out at it. He’s wearing black from head to toe and a backpack slung over one shoulder. He gives us a tight-lipped smile just as Wyatt and John appear, dropping Mr Douglas next to the broken window and ripping off the bag that’s been covering him. His skin has already turned corpse-white.</p>
<p>“Nice we could all make it,” says the Joker. He tells the man with the tattoos to keep an eye on the stairs. Then he turns to me, beckoning me over with him to Mr Douglas. My legs are shaking. “Do everything I say,” he says whilst rummaging for something in his coat, “and everyone gets to walk out of here.”</p>
<p>I try and fully register that as he brings out two small paint cans and shoves them at me. One says ‘WHITE’ and the other says ‘RED.’</p>
<p>When I meet the Joker’s eyes again he nods, kicking Mr Douglas. “Go ahead. Time is ticking.” He nods out the window. The sky is beginning to turn pink.</p>
<p>A car drives down the street. Somewhere nearby, there’s the rattle of the train.</p>
<p>“But—”</p>
<p>His eyes darken. Enough to make me almost drop the cans. I get down on the floor and open them up, barely able to pry off the lids with how bad my hands are now shaking. So that’s what this is. Punishment.</p>
<p>A chemical stench wafts into my nose. The same stench that comes off him. My stomach rolls. Behind me, I can feel Kimberly watching. Holding in the nausea, I begin applying the white paint to Mr Douglas’s face, the areas of his skin that aren’t covered by the mask.</p>
<p>“Boss, we really should get a move on.” It’s Caleb.</p>
<p>There’s a beat of silence. Then I sense a rustle, and when I look up the Joker is pointing his gun at me.</p>
<p>“You heard him,” he says.</p>
<p>The blood in my veins turns to ice. He looks so scattered, edgy. Torn between impulses.</p>
<p>Hands fumbling, I wrench open the other can of paint. It slops over my hands and t-shirt. Before I know it I’m drawing a red, bloody smile up Mr Douglas’s cheeks, over the cuts, like I’m tracing a dot-to-dot drawing. I retch.</p>
<p>The Joker’s coat is rustling again, and then his legs are cutting into my view of the windows, kneeling down on the other side of Mr Douglas.</p>
<p>“Put this on him,” he says, holding something else out to me.</p>
<p>It’s the tape.</p>
<p>I avoid his eyes, keeping my face blank. I reach out and wedge it in the space between Mr Douglas’s hockey pads and his chest.</p>
<p>“Good,” he tells me, like I’m a child who’s done well tidying up their toys. Then he brings out something else, showing it to me. It’s a playing card with an impish, sinister-looking image of a joker on the front, head craned upwards like he’s howling at the sky. And, in black lettering: WILL THE REAL BATMAN PLEASE STAND UP?</p>
<p>“Let me guess,” he says, as he pins the card to the front of Mr Douglas’s suit, brows furrowed in concentration. “You want to know what’s on here, right? Well, I’ll tell you. Three sets of fingerprints. Three sets of DNA.”</p>
<p>“Three people?” My voice is a rasp.</p>
<p>Finished, he gets to his feet, towering over me again. There’s movement around us.</p>
<p>“Who are they?” I press.</p>
<p>“I don’t think you’ve <em>earned</em> a piece of information like that,” he says, lip curling in a sneer.</p>
<p>His eyes keep me fixed to the floor as the man in black bends down to pull Mr Douglas away from me. Wyatt steps in to help him slide the body into a harness. They heave him up onto a desk next to the broken window and then hoist him between the two of them so they can attach a carabiner on his harness to the cable on the ceiling. Wyatt holds the body in place as the other man steps into a harness of his own.</p>
<p>My mouth is opening and closing, so many questions to ask. “How could you get <em>fingerprints?”</em></p>
<p>“Easier than you might think,” he says, watching his men. “Just some delicate handling.”</p>
<p>The man in black is attaching himself to the cable with the carabiner on his harness, now standing on the desk. He grabs hold of Mr Douglas as Wyatt steps away. He hoists his backpack higher up his shoulder. He turns, gives the Joker a salute. And then he pushes off from the desk and out he goes through the window.</p>
<p>Cautiously, I stand and watch them. It has to be something like 50 meters between the two buildings—they zip across these in just a few seconds. Now only tiny figures in the distance. Once he reaches the roof the man digs his feet under him to come to a stop. He unclips both himself and Mr Douglas from the cable and begins to drag him along the rooftop.</p>
<p>I don’t get to watch them disappear. I realize, behind me, everyone is vacating the room. Save for one person.</p>
<p>Kimberly gives me one last look, her face closed off, before she vanishes into the hallway. My flesh shrinks against my bones. The Joker lifts a strand of my hair, examining it.</p>
<p>“Will you tell me what you’re going to do with him?” I say, unable to keep my voice from shaking.</p>
<p>He sighs and clicks his tongue. “You really shouldn’t care so much. He’s a body. A bag of blood and bones.”</p>
<p>
  <em>Now that he’s dead? Or is that how you see everyone—as bags of blood and bones?</em>
</p>
<p>The sun has risen now, a bright, orange ball peeking out from behind the clouds, casting Midtown’s skyscrapers in silhouette. Something occurs to me.</p>
<p>“Were you born in Gotham?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” It comes out flat, even suspicious. “Would you imagine anything otherwise?”</p>
<p>“Do you love it?”</p>
<p>There’s a pause. I wonder if he’s taking in the same sight as I am. With the sky so alight, you can almost kid yourself the city is burning. I don’t want to turn around to check.</p>
<p>“Gotham is mine. It’s <em>my </em>city. It belongs to me. That’s different from love. <em>Love</em> is just attachment, nothing more. What I feel for Gotham is so. Much. More.”</p>
<p>“Then why are you hurting everyone in it?” I say. “Shouldn’t you want to … protect it?”</p>
<p>His tongue darts out to lick his lips. “Here’s a question. Do <em>you</em> love Gotham?”</p>
<p>“I …”</p>
<p>Do I? Do I love Gotham—in my sense of the word? Gotham—a city where people rob and stab and murder on the daily. The answer seems obvious. But does the thought of it in the hands of the Joker, a writhing, screaming carcass of anarchy, cause my guts to feel like a blade is twisting itself inside them?</p>
<p>“It doesn’t really matter anymore.” I almost shrug.</p>
<p>More silence. A rush goes through my body, like we’re back in the elevator and heading up.</p>
<p>It’s overtaken by pain as he swings me around and pushes me up against the window—next to the one missing its glass.</p>
<p>“Then why is it that you want to <em>leave?</em> Hm?” he asks, baring his teeth. But it’s not anger flashing in his eyes. It’s something calmer than that, something measured, even as he pushes me harder against the glass, the wind ruffling the hair next to my cheek.</p>
<p>“I don’t,” I say.</p>
<p>He strikes the glass next to my head. Beneath the reverberating pang there’s a crack, like the chitter of an insect in my ear.</p>
<p>“Don’t lie to me,” he growls.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t want to leave if things were different,” I garble.</p>
<p>“What things?”</p>
<p>I stare at him. The broken window is stealing all my air. I feel like I’m suffocating.</p>
<p>“Things I can’t change, and if nothing changes then you’re insane if you keep trying.” I can hear the crack to my left make another splinter under the Joker’s fist. The blood is thudding inside my head. “What do you want me to tell you?” I almost yell, surprising even myself.</p>
<p>His eyes dart over my face, soaking it all up. I look down at the floor but he tilts up my chin.</p>
<p>“I don’t know what to tell you,” I whisper. “Only that you’re going to be disappointed.”</p>
<p>“Oh, I doubt that.”</p>
<p>That’s when he leans forward and plants his scarred lips on mine.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Long wait for an update, sorry - new job!</p>
<p>Each kudo and comment was a kick to keep writing, so thank you guys!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>